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THE HOUSE OF CROMWELL 



THE STORY OF DUNKIRK. 




THE 



HOUSE OF CROMWELL 



AND THE 



STORY OF DUATKiRK. 




A GENEALOGICAL HISTOEY OF THE DESCENDANTS 

OF THE PEOTECTOE, WITH ANECDOTES 

AND LETTEES. 



JAMES WAYLEN. 




ILLUSTRATED BY ENGRAVINGS, PORTRAITS, AN 



D PLANS. 




Boston ; 

J. G. CITPPLES COMPANY 

250 BoYLSTON Street. 



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69771 




1SX\%JS<pkciDjthehysofI)UMKIEKm f/ie Jiangs cf Sir fV-l'-JlOCja/Jmr. 



PREFACE. 



The following pages are primarily designed to contain genea- 
logical tables of the Protector Oliver's descendants to the 
present day, and thus to carry down through another century 
the family history which terminated in 1785 with the publica- 
tion of Mark Noble's History of the Trotectoral House. 



11 rHJiFACB. 

Otiier misoellaneous matter is added illustrative of the Pro- 
tector's character, all which will speak for itself. But the 
mention of more than a hundred letters, as supplementary to 
Mr. Carlyle's collection of the Protector's Letters and Speeches 
claims a few preliminary observations. 

About the year 1842 Mr. John Langton Sanford of the 
Temple, struck by the astounding discrepancies which had 
long been conspicuous among the biographers of Oliver 
Cromwell, resolved to make an independent investigation on 
his own accoimt, and to commence the task by forming as 
complete a collection as possible of the hero's letters and 
speeches. Of these, he had brought together about three 
hundred, when Mr, Carlyle's work on the same subject came 
forth to light in 1845. As each collection contained documents 
which were wanting in the other, Mr. Sanford promptly and 
generously sm'rendered his own contingent, which accordingly 
made part of Mr. Carlyle's second edition of 1846. To 
specify what that contingent supplied, would now be a super- 
fluous task ; it may suffice to mention that it included the 
Clonmacnoise Manifesto, perhaps the most masterly and 
characteristic specimen on record of Cromwell's polemical 
discernment. 

It is agreeable to add that the results of these studies on 
Mr. Sanford's own mind were already in felicitous accordance 
with the Carlylean decisions, and had issued, to use his own 
terms, in a clear conviction that the theory of Cromwell's 
hypocrisy and selfish ambition was devoid of all support in 
the real facts. lie had learnt also that the lives of Pym, 
Hampden, and many others of that time required re-writing 
quite as much as that of Cromwell ; and he became en- 
creasingly solicitous that his accumulated stores " might be 
moulded into a work supplementary to that of Mr. Carlyle 
and affording a critical refutation of the large mass of calum- 
nious anecdote which still passes for history in works of such 
general value and authority as Mr. Forster's Statesmen of 
the Common lira /t//.''' Such a work therefore appeared in 1858, 



PREFACE. 



— the original title of Life of Oliver Cromwell being supplanted 
by Studies and illustrations of the Great ReheUion ; — and a 
very fascinating book it is, fully answering the proposed 
design, without in the smallest degree disturbing the majestio 
supremacy of the Protector. It closes with a graphic account 
of the fight at Marston-moor, which had never before been 
rightly adjusted ; and it supplies a few additional letters, 
which also may now be read in Carlyle's later editions. 

But indeed that gallant crisis in the fortunes of England 
and of Europe may well sustain other supplementary illus- 
tration besides Mr. Sanford's classic essays. The position 
which the British Protector appeared to be assuming in the 
councils of foreign nations when death laid him low, is ap- 
prehended by very few. Englishmen seem to have forgotten 
the motives which prompted him to snatch from papal Spain 
the port of Dunkirk and adjacent part of Flanders. Nay, 
the majority of his compatriots seem to have forgotten that 
he ever held Dunkirk at all. It is necessary therefore to 
remind them that the capture of that nest of pirates, which 
Dunkirk had long become, was undertaken not only in defence 
of British commerce, but to convince all parties that the arm 
which could thus plant itself between three quarrelsome 
neighbours like France Holland and Spain, and keep the 
peace between them, would endeavour also to allay the eccle- 
siastical atrocities signalizing the ever-recurrent struggles 
throughout Europe for the Holy Empire. In making this 
high-handed resolve, and accepting for his country a position 
fraught with so much responsibility, he at the same time felt 
that the financial objections to the scheme were fully met by 
the check given to the piratical powers along the coast between 
France and Holland. In those buccaneering days, the de- 
predations of sea-robbers who owned allegiance to no con- 
stituted State, were absolutely insupportable. Mr Dannet, 
a member of one of Queen Elizabeth's parliaments, while 
narrating to the House in 1601 the outrages practised by the 
pirates of Dunkirk and Nieuport, contended that "more 



IV PREFACE. 

damage had been inflicted on our commerce by tbese corsairs 
than by the whole power of France during the three reigns 
of Henry VIII, Edward YI, and Queen Mary." On the 
two-fold ground therefore of protestant ascendancy and com- 
mercial freedom, as those questions were then understood, 
the occupation of Dunkirk was a master-stroke. 

The Flanders campaign, Mr. Carlyle probably felt, would 
carry him too far afield ; for he has done little more than 
glance at the career and character of Sir William Lockhart 
om' ambassador at the court of France, and he has left unre- 
corded nearly the whole of the Protector's foreign corres- 
pondence conducted by his latin secretary John Milton, One 
of the objects of the present undertaking is therefore to 
recover this neglected ground, principally having reference 
to Dunkirk ; and though the sequel of the story may land 
us, as indeed it must, in national infamy, the narrative may 
yet serve the purpose of showing how the noble resolves of a 
single righteous man could modify and check the statecraft 
of an entire Continent. 

Stuart policy ever sought and found affinity with Spain. 
Oliver's sympathies on the other hand saluted the genius of 
Sir Walter llaleigh, in whom the Anglican ambition, love of 
enterprise, and contempt of the Spaniard, found their robust 
incarnation, — with this qualification, that in Oliver's case the 
Anglican furor was chastened and adorned by a rigid sense 
of justice and compassion for the unfortunate, born of 
christian humility, which fitted him for a truer dominion 
over his fellow men than Sir Walter could ever reach, 
llcsolving therefore to appeal to such element of manhood as 
existed among the French people, and which by honest 
co-operation might be launched against the powers of dark- 
ness, he enlisted in this crusade the Kings of Sweden and 
Portugal, the Prince of Transylvania, the Helvetians, and 
the Brandenburghers, and would fain have added the power 
of Russia. As for the Dutch, whose commercial jealousies it 
might be necessary to soothe, he took care to shut out their 



rHEFAct:. V 

interference by an early peace. Such were tlie preliminaries 
of his Protestant scheme. It was but a return to the policy 
of Uueen Elizabeth, — " Queen Elizabeth of famous memory ; 
we need not be ashamed to call her so ; that great Queen," 
said Oliver to one of his parliaments ; — reminding us of the 
couplet of a modern seer, 

" O'er land and sea a virgin Queen I reign, 
And spurn to dust both Antichrist and Spain." 

Kingsleys Westioard-Ho. 

There was no one of his subordinates whose action reflected 
so much credit on the Protector as Sir William Lockhart. 
Allied to him by marriage, for their connexion commenced 
by Eobina Sewster, a niece of Oliver, becoming Sir William's 
second wife, the Scottish chieftain's native sagacity and 
unaffected zeal for Protestanism, combined with a perfect 
knowledge of the French language, pointed him out as the 
most effective executor of Oliver's highest aims ; and where 
could those aims be so widely realized as by a league offensive 
and defensive with the rising power of France ? It is inte- 
resting to note how thoroughly Sir William drank into the 
spirit of the enterprise as the crisis rose to view. Irritated 
by petty vexations on his first arrival in France, he is found 
repeatedly begging through Mr. Secretary Thiu-loe that some 
more able substitute might take his place. But his note begins 
to change, as the great treaty, giving to England a renewed 
footing on the Continent, travels through its clauses, and the 
Cromwellian red-coats are seen to be actually landing at 
Boulogne. Notwithstanding the apologetic and self-depre- 
catory language of his dispatches, he was daily reaching the 
conviction that in default of his own agency there was not 
another man in England who could fight a winning battle of 
diplomacy with cardinals, Jesuits, field-marshals, and courtiers. 
Henceforward he is seen to occupy his allotted post with 
graceful ease. We may even perceive that unexpected 
difficulties do but accelerate his impetuosity. At last the 



VI PREFACE. 

Spaniard is encountered band to band, tbe coveted citadel is 
won, and tbe gallant and youtbful Frencb king in tbe 
presence of tbe lords and ladies of bis court places tbe keys 
of Dunkirk in tbe bands of tbe Englisb envoy. Tbe genius 
of tbe Oliverian policy bas triumpbed, and Lockbart takes 
bis place among tbe cbief captains of tbe age. 

Time out of mind bad tbe Englisb public been suffocated 
witb tbe oft-told story of tbe capture and tbe loss of Calais. 
Tbe Protector could now assure tbem tbat tbe loss of Calais 
was more tban redeemed, and tbat tbe Protestant ensign 
under wbicb Gusta^^I3 Adolpbus fougbt and fell would 
bencefortb float over territory torn from papal Spain. Tbe 
wbole affair was eminently calculated to re-awaken tbe 
entbusiasm wbicb bis leadersbip bad formerly kindled ; for 
tbe Flanders campaign, tbougb executed by deputy, was 
rigbtly felt to be animated by bis spirit. His representatives 
meanwbile at tbe Gallic court, wbere Huguenots bad sued in 
vain, received bomages wbicb were witbbeld from tbe very 
Legate of Rome, — a strange spectacle, startling to all Europe, 
— alike anomalous, portentous, and inexplicable. To many 
a lip tbe question must tben bave risen, wbicb in later years 
bas again and again baffled tbe logic of bis defamers, — 
wberein lay tbe divining power wbicb could tbus bring an 
aspiring cardinal and a Frencb autocrat under tbe fascina- 
tion of an beretical island-cbieftain, wbose political aspira- 
tions, all undisguised as tbey were, were backed by but a 
very moderate military power ? Tbe answer surely is found 
in tbe fact tbat every step in bis career was known to be tbe 
expression and outcome of babitual faitb in tbe unseen. To 
bis parliaments and to tbose wbo came still more closely in 
contact witb bim it was sufficiently manifest tbat bis every 
tbougbt was witb tbe eternal, but Milton gives us furtber to 
understand tbat tbe contagion of bis spiritual force carried 
tbe better part of tbe nation along witb bim. Tbrough 
Lockbart's medium tbe same sentiment would remotely 
influence Mazarin, offering a more honourable, and sball we 



PEEFACE. YJi 

not say rational, explanation of his bearing towards the 
English Protector than the mere vulgar fear which is all that 
the Cardinal's enemies can discover in him. This downright 
integrity and absence of self-seeking in Oliver was a new 
phenomenon in the history of monarchs, and at the bottom of 
their hearts, the people hailed his advent as that of a practi- 
cal saviour. In short,—" There has not been a supreme 
governor worth the meal upon his periwig, in comparison,— 
since this spirit fell obsolete," says Carlyle in his comments 
on Speech V. There, gentlemen,— Is that strong enough ? 
That it will for over silence his detractors, can hardly be 
looked for. .But it is in the firm belief that the majority of 
his countrymen are rapidly reaching the same conviction, that 
the tribute of the following pages has been rendered. 

Should it be objected against him that his organization of 
parochial religious life was a mongrel affair, let it also be 
remembered that, in the transition age through which the 
nation was passing, it was a matter of exceptional perplexity. 
Eobert Hall, in many respects a kindred spirit, when repelling 
on one occasion the notion that any particular form of church- 
government was stereotyped for all ages, exclaimed " That 
which is best administered is best." That Cromwell's admin- 
istration of this and every other department was the very 
best conceivable, is not the thing to be proved. That he 
deemed it the best under the actual circumstances of the 
hour, and made it the best by the simple force of his personal 
Christianity, is all that his admirers claim, — sufficiently 
entitling him, they further think, to the eulogy above 
expressed,— ratified as it is by the testimony of a contem- 
porary who having, like many others, watched him long and 
closely, pronoimced him "the justest of conquerors." 
Cafrington's Life of 0. C. 



\ 



OLIVEE: 
LOED PEOTECTOR. 



Oliver Cromwell, the only siu-viving son of Mr. Robert 
Cromwell of Huntingdon and Elizabeth Steward of Ely, 
was born at Huntingdon, 25 April, 1599, and christened in 
the parish church of St. John, receiving his baptismal name 
from his uncle and godfather, Sir Oliver Cromwell of Hinchin- 
brook, Knt. On 22 August, 1620, he was married at St. 
Griles' Church, Cripplegate, London, to Elizabeth, daughter 
of Sir James Bourchier of Felsted, in Essex, Knt., and had 
issue five sons and four daughters, namely : — 

Eobert, baptized at Huntingdon, 13 October, 1621 ; 
buried at Felsted 31 May, 1639. 

Oliver, baptized at Huntingdon, 6 February, 1623 fdied 
in battle, 1644. ?] 

Richard, who succeeded his father in the Protectorate, 
born at Huntingdon, 4 October, 1626 ; died at Cheshimt, 
12 July, 1712. 

Henry, Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, born at Huntingdon, 
20 January, 1628 ; died at Spinney Abbey, 23 March, 
1674. 

James, baptized at Huntingdon, 8 January, 1632 ; died 
in infancy. 

Bridget, baptized at Huntingdon, 5 August, 1624 ; 
buried at St. Anne's, Blackfriars, 1 July, 1662. 

[Note. — In the above list, and in all subsequent dates throughout this 
work, the year will be treated as commencing, not (as was the practice in 
England at the Civil War period) on the 25 of March, but on the 1 of 
January. 

B 



THE HOUSE OF CllOMWELL 



Elizabeth, cliristened at Himtingdon, 2 July, 1629 ; 
died at Hampton Com-t, 6 August, 1658, 

Mary, born at Ely, elnistened at Hunting-don, 9 
February, 1637 ; died at Cbiswick, 14 March, 1713. 

Frances, cliristened at St. Mary's, Ely, 6 December, 
1638 ; died [at Spinney Abbey?] 27 January, 1721. 



THE PROTECTRESS ELIZABETH. 

The scurrilous literature which at the period of the Restora- 
tion found a victim in the quiet dignified Lady Protectress, 
is beneath notice. She was not without annoyance from the 
G-overnment itself. Even before the King's return the news- 
papers were charging her with secreting sundry goods at a 
fruiterer's warehouse near the Three Cranes in Thames Street, 
including pictures and other royal property, with a view to 
exportation. And a few weeks later a search-warrant was 
issued directing her and her sons to deliver up various deeds 
and evidences belonging to the Marquis of Worcester. These 
tribulations, which of course had no other origin than malice, 
drew from her the following petition. 

To the King's Host Rfcelleiif Majesty. 

The humble petition of Elizabeth Cromwell, widow, — 
Sheweth, that among the many sori'ows wherewith it hath 
pleased the allwise God to exercise your petitioner, she is 
deeply sensible of those unjust imputations whereby she is 
charged of detaining jewels and other goods belonging to 
your Majesty ; which, besides the disrepute of it, hath exposed 
her to many violences and losses under pretence of searching 
for such goods, to the imdoing of her in her estate, and 
rendering her abode in any place unsafe ; — she being willing 
to depose upon oath that she neither hath nor knows of any 
such jewels or goods. And whereas she is able to make it 



THE PR0TE(;TRES.S ELIZABETH. 3 

appear by sufficient testimony that she hath never inter-- 
meddled in any of those public transactions which have been 
prejudicial to your Majesty's royal father or yourself, and is 
ready to yield an humble and faithful obedience to yom- 
Majesty in yoiu- government.— She therefore hmnbly prays 
that your Majesty would be pleased to distinguish betwixt the 
concernments of yom- petitioner and those of her relations 
who have been obnoxious ; and out of your princely goodness 
vouchsafe her a protection, without which she cannot expect, 
now in her old age, a safe retirement in any place of your 
Majesty's dominions. And she shall ever pray, &c. 

E. Cromwell. 

This document is endorsed " The petition of Old Noll's 
Wife." As to the venerable lady's whereabouts during this 
revolution of things, we have but scanty evidence. She had 
been ordered to quit the Cockpit soon after her son Richard's 
abdication ; and we can hardly doubt that Henry, whose 
return from Ireland she was anxiously soliciting, now took 
her imder his protection. Just before the Kino-'s arrival 
Henry Coventry, ^vi-iting to the Marquis of Ormond,27 April, 
says, — " Cromwell's widow is stolen out of town, and her 
nighest friends pretend not to know whither." It has been 
asserted that for awhile she sought retirement in Wales, and 
even in Switzerland. All we know for certain is that she 
eventually found a permanent asylum at Northborough 
House in Northamptonshire, near Market Deepino-, the resi- 
dence of her son-in-law Claypole (still standing as a farm- 
house), and that there she died shortly previous to the year 
1666. Further particulars respecting her latter days will occur 
in the lives of her children, Richard, Mary, and Frances. Dr. 
Gibbons, in the family history which forms a sequel to his 
funeral sermon on William Cromwell of Kirby Street, o-ives 
the date of her death as 8 October, 1672. 

The precipitate fall of the Cromwells was felt more or less 
severely by all the members of their house, and they became 
the victims of satire even before the retm-n of royalism. The 
fictitious scenes or speeches of a pasquinade are not of com-se 
to be accepted as history, though they may serve sometimes 
to record what was passing in the public mind, and to reflect 
the gossip of, the hom\ With this understanding, therefore, 
'■'■ The Speech of the Lord Henry CromweW" may be read, 
with its report of domestic disquietude, — supposed to be de- 
livered to the House in October 1659. After apologizing for 
his own and his brother Richard's abandonment of office, and 



4 THE HOUSE OF CROMWELL. 

prophesying that the life and death of his father would he 
represented in pantomime thirty years hence at Bartholomew 
Fair, he goes on, — " I cannot hope for any such monument 
of my own fame. Will ever my face hang out at Temple 
Bar ? will ever my picture be thought worthy to he cut out 
in satin by schoolboys, and hung up in ale-houses to inspire 
ballad-singers ? It is true, we had a pitiful poet belonging 
to our family [Edmund Waller] but he can't write panegy- 
ricks unless he be well fed. They say bad poets are great 
lyars, and I find him so, for he called me " I/!itsfrissi))ius and 
ExceUentimmus .... My comfort is that my brother 

was as much mistaken as I was And then what 

a coil the women keep at home. My mother, instead of 
welcoming me home [from Ireland] cryed out, — Oh, ye base 
bastardly coward ! Have you not done finely, tlius to make 
yourself and me the scorn of nations ? Oh pitiful brothers, 
cries my sister Rich ; I might have married another lord but 
for you, that have undone me and all yoiu- family. And 
indeed they made such a din in my ears, bewailing the loss 
of their lady-rockers gilt coaches, gentlemen ushers, hundred 
pound whisks, and such kind of worldly trinkets, that I was 
almost mazed with the noise. But said I to my mother, — 
Peace, mother, peace ; why cannot you be content to retire 
from greatness to a private life as well as Dioclesian, Charles 
v., and my brother and I ? To my sister Eich, quoth I, 
Pray take not so much pepper in the nose. Your condition 
does not require it. Have you forgotten all the godly 
sermons of Mr. Sterry and Mr. Lockier concerning the world's 
vanity ? At this they cryed out all together, — Give us our 
honours, or else we die. But I hope, gentlemen, you will 
stop their mouths, for I cannot. My mother thought to 
have kept a Coiu^ in Somerset House ; but you have done 
well to sell it, that so that great temptation may be taken 
out of her sight." In conclusion he advises the Members of 
the House to " sit here as long as you can. 'Tis a sweet 
thing to ride upon the shoulders of a nation .... Grive 
your friends life, hang up your enemies, grow rich, and let 
yom- obedient servant go home into the coimtry. 

Where I like hermit poor, in pensive place obscure, 
Do mean to spend my days of endless doubt, 
To wail such woes as Time cannot re-cure, 
Where none but you shall ever find me out. 
And at my gates Despair shall linger still, 
To let in Death, when you shall please to kill," 



UOBEKT the FIKST-BORN. 



ROBERT. 

ELDEST SON OF THE PROTECTOR. 

He was sent, together with liis brotlier Oliver, and perhaps 
also with Richard, to the free grammar-school of Eelstod, 
then under the management of Mr. Holbeach. This est^bhsh- 
ment, which had been founded by Lord Rich in the 
time of Uueen Elizabeth, was just now in considerable repute. 
Doctors JohnWallis and Isaac Barrow are said to have 
received their early education there. But what principally 
recommended the place to the judgment of Oliver was, no 
doubt, the circumstance that his sons would there be under 
the watchful observation of their maternal grandfather, Sir 
James Bom^chier, whose seat was in the same parish. Other 
neighbouring friends and relatives were the Mashams of Otes. 
The few scanty notices of this Robert, who was evidently a 
son after the father's heart, are of a very interesting character. 
The first occm^s in 1638. Cromwell had been making a brief 
stoppage at Otes, where his cousin Mrs. St. John happened 
also to be paying a visit. Perhaps, as Mr. Carlyle suggests, 
he may have been taking one of his sons over to Felsted 
school, and on returning home took occasion to ride round by 
way of Otes and have a talk with his pious kinsmen. The 
discom-se passing at that interview had evidently been of a 
stimulating and devotional character; so Mrs. St. John 
reminds him in a subsequent letter. Cromwell's reply to her 
is one of his most characteristic epistles ; but the only use we 
need make of it here is to quote the reference it contains to 
one of his sons, presumably Robert,—" Salute all my friends 
in that family whereof you are yet a member. I am much 
bound unto them for their love, I bless the Lord for them, 
and that my son by their procurement is so well. Let him 
have yom^ prayers, your counsel ; let me have them." 

Seven months later this Robert died at Felsted, of small- 
pox, to the unspeakable grief of his father. It was to this 



6 THE HOUSE OF CUOMAVELl-. 

event he alluded on his death-bed, when he said, — " This 
text [/ can do all things through Christ wlto strengthenetJi ■me'] 
did once save my life, when my eldest son died ; which went 
as a dagger to my heart ; indeed it did." It was long 
supposed that the son thus alluded to was young Oliver who 
fought by his father's side and fell in the wars; and imder 
this impression Mr. Carlyle inserted the name hypothetically 
into that colloquy, thus — " when my eldest son [poor Oliver] 
died."; — which. Monsieur Guizot copying, but failing to mark 
the doubt, introduced as " nion pauvre Olivier " into his own 
text, thus treating it as an unquestionable fact. The error 
had no doubt acquired confirmation from a passage in the 
father's letter of condolence to his brother-in-law, Valentine 
Wauton, who lost a son at Marston-Moor, — " Sir," says he, 
" you know my own trials this way"; and then soon after, 
recalling his favourite text, he adds, — " You may do all 
things by the strength of Christ. Seek that, and you shall 
easily bear yoviv trial." He had himself in fact just been 
compelled to put to the test the principle here recommended 
to his brother. A passage in the Squire Papers gives the fact 
thus, — " Meeting Cromwell again after some absence, just on 
the edge of Marston battle, I thought he looked sad and 
wearied ; for he had had a sad loss ; young Oliver got killed 
to death not long before, I heard. It was near Knares- 
borough, and thirty more got killed." So that, viewing all 
these facts in their apparent connection, it was a most natural 
inference that the death of young Oliver in battle was that 
first great trial " which went as a dagger to his heart." But, 
much as the father must have felt this second loss, it is now 
fully confirmed that Eobert, and not Oliver, was the son 
whose premature death rose to his memory in the hour of his 
own closing conflict. The discovery of this interesting fact is 
owing to a writer in the Edinljiirgh Review, No. 209, januarij 
1850, whose narrative is as follows, — "In the Register of 
bm-ials in the parish chm'ch of Felsted for 1639 occm's this 
entry. 

RoJyertus Cromwell Jili us lionoramli riri 3Iilitis Oliceris Crom- 
well et Elizaljethee uxoris ejus sepultus/uit, 31 die Mail. Ei 
Robertus/uit eximie inusjucenis Beum timens sujora multos.''^ 

" Which remarkable addition to a simple mention of 
bm-ial Ave need hardly point out as of the rarest occurrence 
on that most formal of all the pages of history, the leaf of a 
parish register ; where to be born and to die is all that can be 



KOHERT, TIIK FIRST-BORX. 7 

conceded to rich or poor. The friend who examined the 
original for us could find no other instance in the volume of 
a deviation from the strict rule. Among all the fathers, 
sons, and brothers, crowded into its records of birth and 
death, the only vir hoiiorandus is the Puritan Squire of 
Huntingdon. The name of the vicar of Felsted in 1639 
was "Wharton. This entry is in his handA\Titing and has his 
signatm-e appended to it ; and let it henceforward be remem- 
bered as his distinction, that long before Cromwell's name 
was famous beyond his native county, he had appeared to 
this incumbent of a small Essex parish as a man to be 
honoured. The tribute to the youth who passed so early 
away, uncouthly expressed as it is, takes a deep and moiu-nful 
significance from the words which lingered last on the dying 
lips of his heroic father. If Heaven had but spared all that 
gentle and noble promise which represented once the eldest son 
and successor of Cromwell's name, the sceptre then falling might 
have found a hand to grasp and sustain it, and the history of 
England taken quite another coiu'se. The sad and sorry 
substitute — is it not written in Monsiem* Cuizot's narrative 
of the Protectorate of Eichard Cromwell ? " [The writer of 
the above is conjectm^ed to have been John Forster.] 



THE HOUSE OF CROMWfiLli. 



OLIVER, 

SECOND SON OF THE PEOTECTOE. 

Accompanied his brotlier Eobert, as stated above, to 
Felsted scbool. On the breaking out of hostilities, that 
brother having recently died, Oliver was the only one of the 
sons old enough to bear arms, and he could not have been 
more than 20 when his name appears as Cornet in Troop 
Eight of Earl Bedford's Horse. Very few traces of his 
military career survive, except in the form of a reference to 
him occurring in Simon Grunton's History of Peterborough. 
In that chronicle the elder Cromwell is represented, according 
to the usual custom of ignorant church-guides, as having 
been engaged in the mutilation of the Cathedral. Young 
Oliver's share in the transaction becomes visible through the 
medium of one of his troopers, who being about to bm-n a 
manuscript relating to the antiquities of the See, was per- 
suaded by Mr. Humphrey Austin the precentor to surrender 
it for the sum of ten shillings and to ensure its preservation 
by subscribing an acquittance on the fly-leaf, which Mr. 
Austin thereupon prefaced by the following " MeHioraiidion. 
This book was hid in the Church by me, Humphrey Austin, 
Feb. 1643, and found by one of Colonel Cromwell's soldiers 
when they pulled down all the seats in the Choir, 22 April, 
1643. And I making inquiry among them for an old Latin 
Bible which was lost, I fouud out at last the party who had it, 
and I gave him for the book ten shillings, as you see by this 
acquittance." [here following. ] 

*' I pray let this scripture book alone, for he hath paid me 
for it, and therefore I would desire you to let it alone. By 
me Henry Topcliff e, soldier under Captain Cromwell, Colonel 
Cromwell's son. Therefore I pray you let it alone. H^.nnj 
Topcliff e. 22, April, 1643. 

The book thus rescued was entitled " The Leger-book of 
Peterborough," being the annals of the See, compiled by a 



OLIVER, THE SECOND SON. 9 

monk of the establishment named Robert Swapham. We 
know full well that the Cromwell family wherever thoy 
could make their influence felt throughout the war, rigorously 
discountenanced violations of this kind ; and a letter of the 
younger Oliver turns up at this very date to corroborate the 
fact. 

''To the rigid wonhipful ami irorthi/ friend Samuel Smi/thc, 
Esq., Steward of the Citij of JVoncieh, 

Worthy Sir,— I am sorry that I should have such 
an occasion to write to Norwich, concerning those which 
say they came from that noble city which hath furnished our 
armies (I can speak by experience) with godly men ; but 
indeed I suppose them rather spurious offspring of some 
ignoble place. Sir, thus it is, that among honest men, some 
knaves have been admitted into my troop, who coming with 
expectation of some base ends but being frustrated of them, 
and finding that this cause did not nom^ish their expectations, 
have to the dishonom- of Grod, and my discredit, and their 
own infamy, deserted the cause and me their captain. 
Therefore, Sir, look upon them as dishonourers of Grod's 
cause, and high displeasers of my father, myself, and the 
whole regiment. In brief, I would desire you to make them 
severe examples, by taking and retm-ning the arms and horses 
of all that have not a ticket imder my hand, and to clap them 
up into prison, and inflicting of such pimishment as you shall 
think fit. Especially I desire that you would deal severely 
with one Eobert Waffe [Wasse ? ] and Simon Scafe. Pray 
Sir, cause to return speedily all that had liberty from me to 
go to their friends. And likewise I desii-e you would secure 
a good horse from some of your malignants to mount one of 
my soldiers, John Manning, now at Norwich, who was lately 
taken prisoner by the enemy and by that means destitute. 
And pray do me the favour to moimt such men as this bearer, 
Eiohard Waddelow, my clerk shall procure. And so I rest, 
— Yours to command, 

Oliver Cromwell. 

From my quarters at Peterborough, 
16 Aug. 1643. 

Young Oliver's deatli in the skirmish near Knaresborough 
in 1644 has been abeady mentioned ; but it is jjroper to add 
that in a brief memoir of Eichard Cromwell, given in the 
" Lives and characters of illustrious persons dying in 17il," it 



lO TltE HOUSE OE CROMWELL. 

is stated that small-pox was the cause of the younger Oliver's 
death. He was a very handsome young gentleman, says the 
narrator. His father had suddenly smnmoned him to join 
the army, and he soon after fell a victim to that complaint in 
the tlower of his youth." Possibly there is some mingling of 
family traditions in this statement written long after the 
event ; and we might be tempted to think that the "handsome 
young gentleman" who died of small-pox was Robert, and 
not Oliver, were it not for a contemporary passage in the 
Far/ia/iienf Scouf, 15 to 22 March, 1644, — " Colonel 
Cromwell is gone with his forces from Burlingham to Stony 
Stratford and Brickhill, and begins to increase in power. He 
hath lost his eldest son, who is dead of the small-pox at Newport 
[Newport Pagnell ?] a civil young gentleman, and the joy of 
his father." In any case he could not be the Oliver Cromwell 
captain in Harrison's regiment who was slain in July 1648. 
See Mark Nohlo. 

There is a "Major Oliver Cromwell" who figm-es in the 
tenth volume of Lords' Journals, p. 616, as the writer of a 
letter dated 28 Nov., 1648, addressed to the Earl of Man- 
chester the Speaker of the Lords, having reference to his own 
and Colonel Hammond's movements while the King was con- 
lined in the Isle of Wight. That he was a zealous and diligent 
servant of the Parliament is testified by an Order of 21 
December, — " That Major Oliver Cromwell, who hath attended 
as servant to the King in the Isle of Wight at his own 
charges be recommended to the House of Commons for some 
satisfaction for the same." He accordingly re-appears 16 
June, 1649, when an Order is passed in the Lower House for 
satisfaction of his claims. Coii/moiis' Journah, VI. 285. We 
cannot suppose him to have been the Protector's son, and 
dates seem to distinguish him also from the captain in 
Harrison's regiment: 



IlICHARD, }'ROTECTOR. ll 



RICHARD, 

THIRD SON OF THE PROTECTOR. 

Like liis two elder brotliers, Richard was sent to Felsted 
School ; after which he resided in the TemjDle in London 
during the war, and at the age of 20 was admitted to the 
Society of Lincoln's Inn. The protectorate of Grreat Britain 
and Ireland into which he was installed on the death of his 
father was a troublous reign of eight months, the story of 
which would be quite unsuitable in this place. At the 
Restoration he fled the Kingdom, more out of fear of his 
creditors than for fear of the King, leaving his wife and 
children behind him at Hursley Lodge near Romsey in 
Hants. After twenty years residence abroad in Paris and 
elsewhere, he retmmecl to England in 1680, a period when 
the increasing unpopidarity of Charles II. divested such a 
step of any great danger ; and under the assumed name of 
Clark, either occupied a small estate which he owned at 
Cheshunt, or shared the roof of ]iis friend Sergeant Sir 
Thomas Pengelly (afterwards Chief Baron of the Exchequer) 
whose house was that standing near the Cheshunt Church, 
and subsequently known as the Rectory. His wife had been 
dead five years ; his only siuwiving son was in possession of 
large property derived from her ; and of his daughters, one 
was already married to Dr. GrilDson, (of whom hereafter) ; 
another was perhaps still living at Hursley ; and a third, 
Doroth}^, just then nineteen years of age, was on the point of 
becoming tlie mfe of John Moi-timer, a Somersetshire squire. 
Richard's return to England at this juncture favom's the 
suggestion that one of the objects he had in view was to be 
present at the ceremony. Tlie young lady died the following 
year in child-bed. There were now only two daughters and 
one son, Oliver, remaining out of a family of nine. This 
son died unmarried in 1705, when tlie question arose, whether 
the Hursley estate which he inherited from his mother passed 



12 THE HOUSE OF CROMWELL. 

directly to his sisters as co-heirs, or to Eicharcl their father 
for his life. The sisters proposed to compromise the affair by 
paying him an annuity ; but Richard, preferring that the 
matter should be decided in Chancery, obtained a decree in 
his own favour. This was an event out of which the enemies 
of the family have always endeavoured to make as much 
capital as possible. The two daughters of course play the 
part of Regan and Goneril ; while poor deposed King Lear, 
then in his eightieth year, receives the condolence of the 
Judge, who orders a chair to be brought him, &c., &c., the 
scene commonly concluding with a severe scolding addressed 
to tlie unfeeling daughters. It so happens that this fabulous 
harangue from the Bench follows, at a very brief interval, a 
previous scene in Coiu't (to be noticed hereafter) having 
certain points in common, wherein Richard's son, Oliver, had 
been concerned. Both the narratives receive discordant 
treatment from different hands ; nor does it ever seem decided 
who in either case was the presiding Judge. The safest 
conclusion will be that the two stories got tossed about and 
mingled in the popular mind, leaving us at liberty to accept 
them in what fashion we like. The late Mr. Cromwell of 
Cheshunt, himself a legal authority, was an unbeliever in 
Richard's affair; asserting it to be a case in which the 
plaintiff's presence in Court was not at all necessary. 

This affair being settled, Richard appears to have spent a 
considerable portion of the remaining seven years of his life 
at Hursley, where in company with his daughters he attended 
the parish church on Sunday mornings, and in the afternoon 
rode alone in his coach to a Baptist meeting-house in Romsey. 
He lies buried in the chancel of Hm'sley Church, though his 
death is asserted to have taken place in the house of his 
Cheshunt friend, Pengelly, above-mentioned, the counsel who 
had successfully conducted his cause in 1705, and to whom 
he was strongly attached. In his will he bequeaths a per- 
sonal souvenir to his good friend Mrs. Rachel Pengelly. 
Some other names too are mentioned, but his daughters are 
not referred to. He knew that they would take the Hursley 
estate after him, and of personal property he probably 
had but little. He enjoyed, we are told, a good state of 
health to the last, and at fourscore would gallop his horse for 
several miles together. In person he is described as tall, fair- 
haired, and "the lively image of his father." A letter of 
T. Whiston quoted by Mark Noble asserts that the Cromwells 
as a family possessed great bodily strength and were of robust 
constitutions, many of them attaining considerable longevity. 
On the other hand it is observable how many of them died in 



UICHARD, PROTECTOR. 13 

infancy, but this may have been owing to the ignorant 
medical treatment of those days. In 1657 during his father's 
Protectorate, Ilichard met with a serious accident, but youth 
and a good constitution soon got the better of it. The 
Members were crowding in to dehver some address to the 
Protector, when the stands of the Banquetting Eoom gave 
way and Pichard got crushed. Thiu-loe writing to Henry 
Cromwell, 8 August, says, — " My lord Pichard continues in 
a most hopeful way of recovery ; not the least ill accident 
hath fallen out since his bones were set; praised be the Lord." 
As to his moral character, Pichard has? shared in the defa- 
mation which, more or less, overtook all the members of liis 
family. He is now known to have been an upright, generous, 
and sagacious man, — fully aware that the turbulent crew 
around him when he became Protector had made peace im- 
possible, but resolving at the same time not to shed a drop of 
blood in defence of a false position. A humane temper is 
not necessarily a weakness ; and certainly John Howe who 
knew him well did not deem him a weak man. On one 
occasion in after years, some person in Mr. Howe's presence 
adopting the cuckoo-cry by charging the ex-Protector with 
weakness, the venerable divine exclaimed, — " How could that 
man be termed weak who when the army remonstrance was 
brought to him by Fleetwood, stood it out all night against 
the whole Council, and continued the debate till foru o'clock 
in the morning ; maintaining that to dissolve that Parliament 
would be his and their ruin ; with none but Thurloe to abet 
him ? " Dr. Isaac Watts who in his youthful days was privi- 
leged to hold many conversations with Pichard Cromwell 
testifies that his abilities were by no means contemptible. 
He fm^ther remarks that in all these interviews, the ex-Pro- 
tector never but on one occasion referred to his former eleva- 
tion, and then only in a very cursory manner. Would that 
the Doctor had taken the trouble to record some of these 
conversations. There is one topic on which we happen to 
know that their experience must have been concmTcnt, 
namely, the oppressive and truculent character of the South- 
ampton magistracy. Another favourable witness was William 
Tonge, of Denmark Street, Soho, who described to Dr. 
Thomas Gibbons Richard's occasional visits to some mutual 
friends there, his appearance in a place of worship, his un- 
blemished character, and the pleasantry which characterized 
his talk. He corroborates Watts's remark about his unwill- 
ingness to refer to former times. 

John Howe the divine above quoted, who had been Chap- 
lain in succession to both the Protectors, died in London in 



14 THE HOTTSE OF CROMWELL. 

1702. He was visited in his last sickness by Ilicliard 
Cromwell, tlien 76 years of age, wlio hearing that his old 
friend was near his end, had come up from the country to 
make him a respectful visit and to take a final farewell. 
Much serious discourse we are told passed between the two 
patriarchal men, and their parting was solemn and affec- 
tionate. When Eichard's own end was approaching, some 
few years later, he said to his two attendant daiighters, — 
" Live in love ; I am going to the Grod of love." His affec- 
tionate disposition is revealed in the following letter written 
to one of these daughters from the house of his friend 
Pengelly at Cheshimt, ten years after his return to England. 

Jxicltard CroDUcell to Mrs. Anne Gihx,0}i. 

18 December 1690, 

Dear, — Think not that I forget you, though I confess that 
I have been silent too long in retm^ning and owning that of 
yours to me. That which was one bar, I knew not, upon Mrs. 
Abbott's removing, how to send so as my letter might come 
safe to you. For though we write nothing of State affairs, 
they being above our providential sphere, yet I am not 
willing to be exposed ; nor can there be that freedom when 
we are thoughtful of such restraint as a peeping eye. The 
hand by which this comes [to you] gave me a hint as if there 
were some foul play to letters directed to him. [to Pengelly ?] 
Dear heart, I thank thee for thy kind and tender expressions 
to me, and I assure thee (if there had been cause) they would 
have melted me. There is a great deal of pity, piety, and 
love. What I had before, was so full that I had not the 
least room to tmni a thought or sm^mise. But what shall I 
say ? My heart was full, but now it overflows. You have 
put joy and gladness into it. How unworthy am I to have 
such a child ! And I know I may venture to say that the 
like parallel is not to be found. What I said was exj)erienced 
matter for information. "Wliat you replied was in behalf of 
those who professed themselves to be the Lord's people ; and 
they that are truly such are as tender as the apple of His 
eye. I rejoice in that we both of us love them ; yet we are 
not to deny our reasons as to the mischiefs some of them have 
been instrumental [in causing] not only in particular to a 
family, but in general to the Church of Christ. Besides, 
what woes are hanging over these nations ! May we not go 
farther, and bring in all Christendom ? I have been alone 
thirty years banished and under silence ; and my strength 



RICHARD, PROTECTOR. 15 

and safety is to be retired, quiet, and silent. "We are foolish 
in taking our cause out of the hand of God. Our Saviour 
will plead, and God will do right [as] He hath promised. 
Let us join oui- prayers for faith and patience. If we have 
heaven, let whoso will, get the world. My hearty, hearty, 
lieart}^ affection and love to your sister and self. Salute all 
friends. I rest, commending you to the blessing of the 
Almighty. Again farewell. Your tridy loving father, 

E. C. 

Present me to all friends. Landlord and Landlady [the 
Pengellys] present respects and service." 

The few incoherences visible in the above would probably 
adjust themselves faiiiy enough, did we know the substance 
of the letter which brought them forth ; though it is not un- 
likely that an obscm^e and involved style would become 
habitual to one writing under the constant fear of having his 
letters opened ; to say nothing of his having spoken French 
for twenty years. 

The story of Richard's twenty years exile is involved in 
much obscm'ity. The following document preserved in the 
Record Office may help in some small measui'e to remove it. 
It is numbered CLI. 17. State Papers, Domestic, C/iarlesU., and 
was first brought before the public notice in the AtJiena>H»i 12 
April, 18G2 by Mrs. Everett Green, who opened the subject 
by stating that, — During the war with Holland the Govern- 
ment of Charles II. fancying that the English " fanatics " 
resident abroad were in league with the Provinces against 
their own country, came to the resolution of fetching them 
home by a threat of high treason. An Act was thereupon 
passed, beginning with the direct attainder of three, to wit, 
Thomas Dolman, James Bampfield, and Thomas Scott ; and 
further enacting that any others who should refuse to come 
when summoned woidd incm^ the like penalty. This was in 
1665, and the next year it became known that a list of 
fugitives had been nominated, including Richard Cromwell. 
Mrs. Cromwell his wife becoming justly alarmed, sent her 
agent "William Mumford twice up to London to procm'e if 
possible the withdrawal of her husband's name from the 
Proclamation. As the opportunity seemed a favourable one 
for getting at the personal history of the ex-Protector, the 
agent himself was put under examination, as follows. 

\_Note. — In his extant letters he avoids names and places as niuch as 
possible, his object being to keep out of harm's way.] 



16 THE HOUSE OF CROMWELL. 

" The examination of William Mnmford of Hnrsley near 
Winchester Co. Hants, yeoman; taken this 15 March, J 666, 
before me Edmund Warcupp Esq. one of his Majesty's 
Justices of the peace for the said county and liberties. This 
examinant saith that he is menial servant to Mrs. Dorothy 
Cromwell wife to Richard Cromwell, living at Hursley ; and 
hath belonged to him and to her these eleven years last past, 
and now nianageth Mrs. Cromwell's business in the country 
or London as her occasions require. He saith that he came 
to London about five weeks since to apply to Dr. Wilkins 
to move my Lord Chancellor [Hyde] that Richard Cromwell's 
name might be omitted in his Majesty's Proclamation to call 
his English subjects out of France, for that his debts would 
ruin him in case he should be necessitated to return into 
England ; and Dr. Wilkins informed this examinant that his 
lordship the Lord Chancellor told him he knew not of 
Richard Cromwell's name being at all put into the proclama- 
tion, whereupon this examinant immediately returned into 
the country. But the rumour continuing that Richard 
Cromwell's name would be in, he retm^ned again to London 
by his mistress's order yesterday was three weeks, and then 
lodged at one William Taste's a baker in Air Street, Picca- 
dilly, and his horse stands at the Bear there ; — that at the 
first time of this examinant's being in town he received a 
letter from Richard Cromwell directed to himself but was 
for Mrs. Cromwell, the contents whereof was complaints for 
money and condoling for his mother's death ; and saith he 
knoweth not of any other person that Richard Cromwell 
correspondeth with but this examinant. He further saith 
that this examinant's wife's sister Elizabeth Blackstone 
having by distraction miu-dered her neighbour's child and 
been committed to Newgate for the offence, this examinant 
repaired to Newgate to assist her in her distracted condition, 
and this was all the reason why he went to Newgate. He 
further saith that as far as he knows or believes the said 
Richard Cromwell doth not hold any intelligence with any 
Fanatics nor with the King of France or States of Holland ; 
and that to avoid any jealousy of it, the said Richard 
Cromwell is by Dr. Wilkins' advice gone or going into 
Italy or Spain, and that the last letter this examinant 
sent to him five weeks since was directed to John Clarke 
at Monsieur Bauvais' in Paris, by which name the said 
Richard Cromwell now passeth, and doth usually change 
his name with his dwelling, that he may keep himself un- 
known beyond the seas, so as to avoid all correspondency or 
intelligence, which this examinant knows he industriously 



(I 



RiniARD, PROTECTOR. 17 

ayoidotli ; for during last winter twelve month he lived with 
the said IiichaTd Cromwell in Paris, and the whole diversion 
of him there was drawing of landscapes and reading of books ; 
And he saw no Englishman, Scotch, or Irishman in his 
company dm-ing that whole time, nor any Frenchmen but 
such as instructed him in the sciences. This examinant 
fm'ther saith tliat he hath not any intelligence with any 
person whatsoever to his knowledge that doth intend or act 
anything whatsoever against his Majesty; and that he 
conceives himself bound in duty and conscience to discover 
all traitors or traitorous conspiracies aga^inst his Majesty or 
his Government ; and that the estate of Richard Cromwell in 
right of his wife is but £600 per annum, and that he knoweth 
Richard Cromwell is not sixpence the better or richer for 
being the son of his father, or [for being] the pretended 
Protector of England ; and that the estate of old Mrs. Crom- 
well lately deceased was in the hands and management of 
Jeremy White chaplain to Oliver Cromwell, and now at Sir 
John Eussell's at Chippenham, who will not come to any 
account for the same, and who hath not yet conformed. This 
examinant further saith that he knoweth not of any person 
who writes to the said Pichard besides this examinant and Mrs. 
Ciomwell his wife ; and that he knoweth not nor ever heard 
that the Scotch regiment is coming out of France, and he 
is certain that the said Pichard never intended to come over 
with it, but is gone or going into Spain or Italy as advised. 
He fui'ther saith that he hath often heard Pichard Cromwell 
pra}^ in his private prayers for his Majesty, praying Grod to 
make his Majesty a nursing father to his people, speaking 
often with great reverence of his Majesty's grace and favour 
to himself and family in suffering them to enjoy their lives 
and the little fortunes they have ; And this examinant 
further saith that he will not meddle any further in the said 
Pichard Cromwell's affairs if it be any way j^rejudicial 
to his Majesty's service ; and that he hath not, nor the said 
Richard Cromwell, to this examinant's knowledge, acted 
dii'ectly or indirectly anything against his Majesty's Grovern- 
ment since his Majesty's happy restoration, and that himself 
hath taken the Oaths of allegiance and supremacy. And 
further sayeth not. WILLIAM MUMFORD. 

(Signed) Edmund Warcupp. 

The falsity of Hyde's statement that Richard Cromwell's 
name was not in the list is proved by another paper endorsed 
" 26 March 1666, Names of the fourteen persons to be 
warned home by a proclamation in pui-suance of the Act," 

c; 



18 THE HOUSE OF CKOMWEl.L. 

They were as follows, —William Scott, Sir Robert Honey- 
wood jim, Colonel John Disbrowe, Colonel Kilpatrick, John 
Grove, Algernon Sydney, Oliver St. John, Richard Steele, 
Newcomen and Hickmen two ministers, Richard Cromwell, 
John Phelps, Colonel Cobbett, Richard Deane. On matm'cr 
consideration, all these names were withdi^awn except five, — 
Richard Cromwell's being probably one of those withdrawn. 
[Note. " Dr. Wilkins " mentioned above was John Wilkins 
who afterwards became Bishop of Chester. He had married 
Robina a sister of Oliver Cromwell, of whom hereafter.] 



THE PROTECTRESS DOROTHY. 

Richard's wife, whom he married in 1649 shortly after the 
death of Charles I., was Dorothy eldest daughter and co- 
heir of Richard Major a wealthy landowner of Hursley 
aforesaid and of Merdon in SmTcy. This was a marriage in 
which the elder Protector testified unqualified satisfaction on 
accovmt of the personal piety not only of the father but also 
of " Dear Doll " herself ; and the allusions which he makes 
in his letters to her on-coming family look as though he 
cherished the hope that his grandchildren would sustain his 
own greatness. The few surviving memorials of the lady 
herself represent her as a prudent, godly, and practical 
Christian, much devoted to acts of personal charity. For a 
while she was terribly cast down by the reverse of fortune 
which drove her husband and herself from the palace of 
Whitehall to the obscm-ity of the Hm-sley retreat, an event 
aggravated simultaneously by the decease of her father Mr. 
Major and the flight of her husband into j)rolonged exile. 
It is true she had her infant family to rear, the birth of her 
youngest, Dorothy, occmTing just as her husband left the 
English shore ; but her bright hopes in respect of theii* futm-e 
fortunes were utterly dashed, and the chagrin which darkened 
her own reflections seems traceable in theii' education. One 
result of afiliction was the strengthening of her Nonconformist 
principles ; and her active benevolence thenceforward found 
expression in endeavours to solace and protect divers 
ministers ejected by the Uniformity Act of 1663. She died 



THE PllOTECTRESS DOKOTHY. 19 

ill 1G76 in the forty-ninth year of her age, and lies bnried 
in the chancel of Hursley Church. Her children, nine in 
number, were as follows. 

I. Elizabeth, born in 1650. This is " the little brat," 
after whose welfare tlie elder Protector makes enquiry in a 
letter to Mr. Major on the 17th July, wherein also he chides 
the yoTing parents for neglecting to write to him, and says of 
dear Doll, " I doubt now her husband hath spoiled her." 
. . • " I hope you give my son good counsel : I believe he 
needs it ; he is in the dangerous time of his age, and it's a 
very vain world." Touching the baby, Mr. Carlyle thinks 
" the poor little thing must have died soon," and he adds 
that " in Noble's inexact lists there is no trace of its ever 
having lived." But Mark Noble is strictly exact in this 
matter and gives us all the information we need. Oliver's 
good wishes too were amply fulfilled, for the Httle Elizabeth 
outlived all her brothers and sisters and reached the ao-e of 
81. She appointed as executors her two cousins Eichard and 
Thomas Cromwell, grandsons of Henry Lord Lieutenant of 
Ireland, desiring them to erect in Hm\sley Church a monu- 
ment setting forth all the particulars of the recent Cromwell 
and Major alliances ; a task which they duteously fulfilled. 
And as she was the last surviving representative of her 
father's house, a vast collection of portraits, letters, and other 
family relics, descended from her to the cousins aforesaid. 
She will still have to come under oiu' notice hereafter. 

II. Anne, born in 1651 ; died in infancy and was bmied 
at Hiu'sley. 

III. A SON, baptized at Hursley 3 Nov. 1652 ; buried 
there in the following month. 

IV. Mary, born in 1654, died in infancy ; buried at 
Hursley. 

V. A FOURTH DAiTGHTER, bom in 1655 — lived only twelve 
days. 

VI. Oliver, son and heir, of whom hereafter. 

VII. Dorothy, born in 1657 ; died next year dimng the 
Protectorate of her father, who prudently refrained 'from 
opening the Westminster Abbey vaidt, and caused the body 
to be quietly buried at Hursley. 

VIIL Anna, born in 1659 during her father's Protectorate. 
She became the wife of Dr. Thomas Gribson, physician- 
general of the army, whom she survived many years. Her 
own death occurred in 1727 in the sixty-ninth year of her 
age ; and a marble monument in St. Greorge's Chapel in the 
Foundling Hospital commemorates husband and wife. Dr. 
Gribson by will appointed that after his wife's decease the 



20 THE HOrSE OF CK():\nVKTJ,. 

whole of his property should pass to his nephew Dr. Edmund 
Gribson, Bishop of London. The prelate maintained a re- 
spectful and intimate correspondence with his widowed aunt 
as long as she lived ; and it is conjectured that the terse and 
comprehensive Life of Oliver which about that period went 
through so many editions, was the result of his honoui\able 
and appreciative attachment to the family. The two sur- 
viving sisters, that is to say, Mrs. Gibson and her elder sister 
Miss Elizabeth Cromwell lived together in Bedford Row, and 
after the death of their only brother Oliver, must have been 
very wealthy. We catch an interesting glimpse of them in 
1719 from the journal of Thomas Hearne the antiquary, who 
long resided in St. Edmund Hall, Oxf. — " On Satm-day, 
5 September, came to Oxford two daughters of Ixichard 
Cromwell son of Oliver Cromwell Protector ; one of whom is 
married to Dr. Gibson the physician who wrote TJie Anatomy ; 
the other is unmarried. They are both Presbyterians, as is 
also Dr. Gibson who "\\'as with them. They were at the 
Presbyterian Meeting-house in Oxford on Sunday morning 
and evening ; and yesterday they and all tlie gang with them 
dined at Dr. Gibson's the Provost of Queen's ; who is related 
to them, and made a great entertainment for them, expecting 
something from them, — the physician being said to be worth 
£30,000. They went from Oxford after dinner." Rcliqidfe 
Hearneance. Vol. 2. 

Mr. Hewling Luson, (related to Henry's line) of whom 
more hereafter, says, — "I have been several times in comp)any 
with these ladies. They were well-bred, well-dressed, stately 
women, exactly punctilious ; but they seemed, especially 
Mistress Cromwell, to carry about them a consciousness of high 
rank, accompanied with a secret di-ead that those with whom 
they conversed should not observe and acknowledge it. They 
hacl neither the great sense nor the great enthusiasm of Mrs. 
Benclysh. But, as the daughter ©f Leton had dignity without 
pride, the daughters of Pichard Cromwell had pride without 
much dignity." 

Mr. Luson might have added that they habitually assisted 
other branches of the family who were in less prosperous 
circumstances than themselves. When the death of their 
father had left these two ladies at liberty to dispose of the 
family estate at Plm-sley, they sold it to Sir William 
Heathcote for 34 or £35,000 ; who at once proceeded to pull 
down the old mansion and to re-build it from the very 
foundations, — report said, because he scorned to dwell in a 
house which the CromAvells had owned. The frantic prejudices 
which long raged against the fallen famil}^, it must be 



CHILDREN OF RICHARD CROMWELL. ^1 

admitted were sufficiently besotted to give credibility to gossip 
more vulgar even than this. The next generation of Heath- 
cotes, if not wiser men, acquired at least a reputation for more 
amiability. Those who are acquainted with the Memou's of 
the late Plenry Hunt of Reform notoriety will recall his 
descriptions of the hospitalities of Hursley Lodge at a some- 
what later date, when he himself was a youthful guest there in 
1785, — Sir Thomas Heathcote and his brother-in-law "William 
Wjmdham of Dinton in Wilts being, in Mr. Hunt's judgment, 
the two best sirrviving examples of old English housekeeping. 
IX. Dorothy, born at Hm-sley 1 August V^60. The 
date of her father's flight from England has been approxi- 
mately determined by Mark Noble as in July or August, 
that is to say, some few weeks after King Charles II's retm^n, 
and it seems reasonable to suppose that his object in lingering 
here so long was to await the issue of this the last birth in the 
family, and, as it proved to be a girl, to give for the second 
time the beloved name of Doroth}^ ; which conjecture may be 
coupled with the other already made, that his retmni to England 
in 1680 was in part prompted by the resolution to occupy his 
paternal place at her wedding. The young lady married 
John Mortimer, Esq., of Somersetshire, F.E..S., author of 
" The whole art of husbandry," published in 1708. He is said 
to have half ruined himself by experiments in agricultural 
science ; but before this happened his wife had died in child- 
bed, within a year after her marriage. This was in 1081. 
Dorothy therefore is not to be credited with any share in that 
transaction of her sisters when they disputed their father's 
rights in 1705. Her husband re-married, a daughter of 
Samuel Saunders, Esq, of Derbyshire, and had, with others, 
a son well known as Dr. Cromwell Mortimer, secretary of the 
Eoj^al Society — so named by his father, apparently in memory 
of his first wife. 

Oliver Cromwell, only smwiving son of the Protector 
Richard, was born at Hursley in 1656. It was very natm\al 
that the elder Protector, after hearing of so many deaths 
among his grandchildren at Hursley, should express a i^ar- 
tiality for one who at last gave fair promise of healthy 
existence. Little Oliver accordingly was brought up from 
Hampshire, probably to Hamjoton Coiu't, and remained there 
till the deposition of his own father ; when, together with his 
sisters, he was again sent down to Hm-sley. Of his early 
manhood little is known ; but at the period of the Revolution, 
being then in possession of the estate which he inherited 
from his mother, he came forward with a patriotic proj^osal 
to raise a regiment of horse for the service of Ireland, if he 



22 THE HOUSE OF CllOMWELL. 

miji^lit be permitted to name his own Officers. The politic 
William had no desire at that ricketty jimcture of affairs to 
see a rival for popularity in the person of a second Oliver 
Cromwell, whose father and grandfather had both occupied 
the throne ; and the offer was declined. It was a like 
cautionary feeling perhaps which gave bias to the Election- 
Committee who in 2nd of William and Mary rejected the 
petition of Oliver Cromwell and Thomas Jervoise, Esquires, 
when they claimed to have been legally returned for the 
borough of Lymington. It is well known that the contested 
elections whose details crowd the Commons'' Journah of that 
and the succeeding age were often made to tm^n on arbitrary, 
diverse, and obsolete customs prevailing in this or that 
borough ; so that, as the law of one borough was no law for 
its neighbour, the retiu-ns could be adjusted pretty much 
as the Grovernment desired. An anecdote for which we 
are indebted to Howling Luson's history of the family, 
humorously associates Mr. Cromwell's petition with Sir 
Edward Seymour the arch-Tory of the day. The Member 
who had consented to act in Mr. Cromwell's behalf on this 
occasion, seeing Sir Edward entering the House at the same 
time thought it would be a good joke to transfer the office to 
one who Avas the mortal enemy of the family, and accord- 
ingly addressed him thus, — " Sir Edward, pray do me a 
favour. I have to attend a trial in Westminster Hall, which 
Avill probably keep me too late to give in a petition which I 
this morning promised to present. Will you present it for 
me ? 'Tis a mere matter of form." — " Cive it me," said Sir 
Edward, and the petition went at once into his pocket. On 
the occurrence of a fitting opportunity, Seymoiu- got upon 
his feet, adjusted his spectacles, and began to read, — " The 
humble petition of . . . of . . , the Devil, — of Oliver 
Cromwell." The laughter which greeted this explosion was 
more than Sir Edward could endure ; he threw down the 
petition, and ran out of the House. Mr. Luson gives this 
story as " resting only on common fame." Perhaps common 
fame may also be credited with the next. Lord Chancellor 
Hardwicke once heard a suit in which tlie grandson of the 
Protector Oliver was a party. The opposing counsel thinking 
to make way with the jmy by scandalizing Oliver's memory, 
was running on in the accustomed style, when Lord Hard- 
wicke effectually checked him by saying, *' I perceive Mr. 
Cromwell is standing outside the bar and inconveniently 
pressed by the crowd. Make way for. him that he may come 
and sit on the bench." The representative of the family 
accordingly took his place beside the Judge, and the orator 



HENK.Y CROMWELL. 23 

changed his tone. Queen Anne, so common fame further 
saith, expressed her cordial approval of the Judge's conduct. 
For the protracted period of seven years Mr. Cromwell was 
involved in a Chancery suit with his Merdon tenants touching 
the rights and customs of the manor. This we may suppose 
was the suit just referred to. 

Mr. Say, the Dissenting Minister to whom we are indebted 
for so many reminiscences of the family, says he had seen this 
Mr. Cromwell and coidd testify that he had something of the 
spirit of his grandfather ; while another contemporary Avriter 
adds that " he had his look and genius." But notwith- 
standing that, like his own father, he presented the marks of 
robust manhood, he passed away prematurely in 1705 in the 
fiftieth year of his age and was buried in the family vault at 
Hursley. His will, written in 168G when only 30 years old, 
makes mention of his " honoured father," but the principal 
money bequests are to his sisters, giving £2000 to each, if 
they married in their father's lifetime. Legacies are also 
left to Benjamin Disbrowe of London, merchant, to Paris 
Slater and William Wightman of London, William Kud- 
yard of Hackney, Edward Eayner and Mary his wife, John 
Leigh, Thomas AVade, his cousin Elizabeth Barton, his loving 
friend Samuel Tomlins B.D., and Mrs Anne Thomas. 



HENRY 

FOURTPI SON OF THE PROTECTOR 

Recei"s-ed like his brothers such brief education as the stormy 
times would permit, at Felsted. He joined his father in arms 
about the time of the re-modelling of the army, being then 
only sixteen years of age ; and three years afterwards we find 
him occupying the post of Captain in Sir Thomas Fairfax's 
Life-Q-uards. Advanced to a Colonelcy, he accompanied his 
father in ihe short but decisive Irish campaign where he per- 
formed the part of a dashing officer and an intelligent adviser ; 
he was also present at the death-bed of his brother-in-law 
Henry Ireton who died at Limerick in 1G51. At the age of 



24 The iioT'Sf. ot-' ckomwell. 

twenty-five Henry became a still more prominent man, for he 
now sat in bis father's Parliament as a representative of 
Ireland, he made a diplomatic visit of observation to Dublin, 
and he married Elizabeth daughter of Sir Frances llussell of 
Chippenham, Bart. His subsequent career as Lord- Lieutenant 
of Ireland brought to light all those faculties which proved 
him the worthy son of such a father. He remained at his 
post during the two protectorates, having throughout a sore 
fight to maintain with fanatics of every class, but harassed 
principally by the difficulty of getting the soldiers' pay from 
England. Kapin's observation, made after the event, has 
been accepted by most of the subsequent historians, namel}^ 
that if Henry had succeeded to the Protectorate instead of 
lUchard, the Republican officers would have met their match. 
A coarse compliment of similar import has been paid even to 
one of his sisters. But there is no reason to think that these 
summary judgments represent in any wise the estimate which 
the father formed of his two sons ; perhaps we ought to re- 
verse it. Richard, bred to peaceful pm^suits, was simply in- 
capable of manipulating the army ; and had Henry assumed 
the supreme command, he would have discovered that, with 
his principles, the army's occupation was gone, except to 
anticipate the part which Monk subsequently played. 

A strong attachment had sprung up between Henry Cromwell 
and his brother-in-law Lord Fauconberg even before they ever 
met. Henry and his wife were in Ireland at the time of Fau- 
conberg's marriage with Mary Cromwell ; but from and after 
that event the letters passing between them were increasingly cor- 
dial and confidential. While their brother rieetwood,inconjmic- 
tion with Disbrowe, Lambert, Berry, and the rest, were plotting 
the fall of the Protector Richard, Fauconberg supplied Henry 
■\\ath constant information, and both united in scorn for the 
fanaticism which in Fleetwood they felt to be but the feeble 
resurrection of an obsolete creed — the theory, as Henry for- 
mulated it, of "Dominion founded in Grrace." For a shoit 
period indeed "the shade of Cromwell" as Hallam has ex- 
pressed it " seemed to hover over and protect the wreck of his 
greatness." But when this had passed aAvay and men awoke 
to the fact that the Puritan-King was really dead, the galvanic 
starts and plunges of mere imitators were felt to be ridiculous ; 
and as there was no reason on earth why the Cromwells as a 
family should inherit a kingdom, its various members had the 
good sense to withdraw at once into private life. Henry re- 
tired to the home of his father-in-law Sir Francis Russell at 
Chippenham in Cambridgeshire, there to await with what 
fortitude he could the out-come of the political chaos. After 



HENRY CROMWELL. 25 

a residence of five or six years at Chippenham, he removed to 
his own estate at Spinney- Abbey near Soham, worth about 
£500 a year, where in rural occupations he passed the re- 
maining nine years of his Hfe, dying in 1674 of that painful 
disorder the stone, in the forty-seventh year of his age. 
Though he is styled plain " Henry Cromwell " on his tomb, 
yet in his will he %vrites himself " Sir Henry Cromwell of 
Spinney in Cambridgeshire, Knight," being not unwilling, 
suggests Noble, to let the world know, when he could not be 
called to account for it, that he thought it an honour to have 
received Knighthood from his father. He had also been made 
one of the Ijords of the Upper House in 1657, but his woi'k 
in Ireland prevented his sitting. In his will he mentions only 
two names, those of his wife and his eldest son Oliver, to the 
former of whom he devises all his estates in England and 
Ireland with absolute power of disposal. 

It may not be left untold that after his retirement into 
private life he conformed to the Established faith, and that 
too at a period in the Church's history when imprisonment 
and confiscation were the weapons of her warfare against 
many of his personal relations and political friends. He had 
learnt it is true during his Dictatorship in Ireland the neces- 
sity of holding the scales of justice uninfiuenced by polemical 
distinctions ; and it is evident that he acquired during the 
process much stronger prejudices than his father ever enter- 
tained against religious enthusiasts. While this may partly 
accoimt for his subsequent choice, it is more than probable 
that his wife's preferences in the same direction operated as a 
concurrent influence. We are told that an Anglican chaplain 
was maintained at Spinney- Abbey during her widowhood ; 
till the non- conformity of the next generation disi^laced him. 
But then on the other hand, Henry had given asylum to 
Richard Parr the vicar of his own parish of Cliippenham, 
when ejected for Nonconformity ; so that, on the whole, we 
shall not be far wrong in crediting him with a fair share of 
liberality. The note of jubilation which Mark Noble raises 
on Henry's Conformity argues the rarity of such an event 
among the Protector's descendants of the male line. 

Henry CromiceWs jwHtion to the King. 

Sheweth, — That your petitioner doth heartily acquiesce 
in the providence of Cod for restoring your Majesty to the 
government of these nations ; — That all his actions have been 
without malice either to the person or to the interest of your 
Majesty, but only out of natural duty to his late father :— 



26 THE HOUSE OF CROMWELL. 

That your petitioner did, all tlie time of his power in Ireland, 
study to preserve the peace plenty and splendour of that 
kingdom, did encourage a learned ministry, giving not only 
protection but maintenance to several Bishops there ; placed 
worthy persons in the seats of judicatm-e and magistracy, and 
to his own great prejudice upon all occasions was favoru\ab]e 
to your Majesty's professed friends. He therefore humbly 
beseeches your Majesty that the tender consideration of the 
premisses and of the great temptations and necessities your 
petitioner was under, may extenuate yom- Majesty's displea- 
sure against him ; — and that your Majesty, as a great instance 
of your clemency and an acknowledgement of the great mercy 
which your royal self hath received from Almighty Gfod, 
would not suffer him his wife and children to perish from the 
face of the Earth, but rather to live and expiate what hath 
been done amiss with their f utm-e prayers and services for your 
Majesty. In order whereunto yom- said petitioner humbly 
offers to your Majesty's most gracious consideration, that 
since he is already outed of about £2000 per annum which 
he held in England, and for wliicli £-1000 portion was paid 
by yom" petitioner's Avife's friends to his late father, he may 
obtain your Majesty's grant for such lands abeady in his 
possession upon a common account with many others in 
Ireland as shall by law be adjudged forfeited and in' your 
Majesty's dispose. And forasmuch as yoiu^ petitioner hath 
laid out near £6000 upon the premisses, that yom^ Majesty 
woidd recommend him to the next Parliament in Ireland to 
deal favourably with him concerning the same, and according 
to your petitioner's deportment for the common good of that 
place. And lastly your petitioner most humbly beseeches 
your most excellent Majesty that no distinction between him- 
self and other your Majesty's good subjects may be branded 
on him to posterity ; — that so he may without fear, and as well 
out of interest as duty, serve your Majesty all his days ; who 
shall ever pray &c. 

H. Cromwell." 

Certificate annexed. 

" Whereas we were desired to testify om' knowledge con- 
cerning the value of the lands to be confirmed to Colonel 
Henry Cromwell, we do hereby certify as foUoweth, viz. — 
That the lands in Ireland possessed by the said Colonel 
Cromwell on 7 May 1650 were in satisfaction of £12,000 in 
debentm-es or near thereabouts ; — That debentures were com- 



HENRY .S WIFE. 27 

nionly bought and sold for four, five, and six shillings in the 
pound, few jdelding more even in the dearest times. Accord- 
ing to which rates the said lands might have been had for 
between three and four thousand pounds. Which said sum 
with the improvements by him made thereupon, is as mucli 
as the same is now worth to be sold ; and is all we know he 
hath to subsist upon for himself and family. Griven imder 
our hands this 23 February 1G61. 

Massereene. 

AuDi-EY Mervyn, 

There are extant other letters of Henry addressed to Lord 
Clarendon at the time of the Restoration, — "too abject in 
their tone " must it be said, from the scion of such a house ? 
Yet when we recall the frantic haste which all men were 
making to tm^i their backs on that house, and to throw them- 
selves at the feet of roj^alism, censure may well give place to 
compassionate sympathy. Henry's lady, Elizabeth the 
daughter of Sir Francis Russell aforesaid, survived her hus- 
band thirteen years. Elegant in manners and exemplary in 
conduct, she was long remembered in the neighbourhood as 
" the good Lady Cromwell." Her grandson William Crom- 
well of Kii'by Street informed Dr. Gribbons that though, like 
many others, she had at first entertained a hostile feeling 
towards the Protector Oliver, yet on becoming his daughter- 
in-law, closer observation changed her antipathies into affec- 
tionate esteem, and led her to regard him as the most amiable 
of parents. Her death occurred in 1687 in the fifty-second 
year of her age ; and her monument with others of the family 
are preserved in Wicken Church, Cambridgeshu'e. 

Issue of Henri/ Cromwell lord Ueufenant of Ireland and the 
Lady EUzahefh Russell! 

I. Oliver, born in Dubhn, 1656 ; died at Spinney- Abbey, 
1685, in the 2llth year of his age, and as is supposed un- 
married. The. story of the infant's birth, as recorded in a 
News-letter of the day, reads like sad irony in view of the 
ribalchy which three years later assailed its father — " From 
Dublin. On the 19th of April my lord Henry Cromwell 
became the joyful father of a son ; which, as it hath been 
matter of great joy to us, so I presume it will be welcome 
news to you. The earnest prayers of good peoi^le gave his 
lordship's lady so easy a deliverance that the most part of lier 
ladyship's travail was spent in dispatching letters for England. 
The joy thereof confined not itself long within the walls of 



28 THK HOUSE OF CROMWELL. 

their private familj^, but was straight blazed by several bon- 
fires throughoTit the city ; the honest townsmen seeming 
emulous who should contribute tlie greatest solemnity for so 
great a mercy. On the 24th following, the joys were more 
jjerfect, there being more congratulations for the infant's 
admission into the Chiu'ch by baptism than for its entrance 
into the world by birth ; his lordship liaving openly in Christ- 
chiu'ch offered up his child that day to the Lord in that 
ordinance, and given it His Highness' s name. Which so 
heightened the joy of the congregation, that I never saw in 
one meeting more eyes and I believe hearts more intently 
lifted up in prayer, never heard more passionate praises for a 
blessing, than on that da}^ ; which gives no small support to 
my faith that a child of such prayers and praises shall not 
miscarry." 

II. Henry, born in Dublin in 1658 ; of whom hereafter. 

III. Francis, born at Chippenham in 1663 ; died un- 
married in 1719. 

IV. Richard, born at Spinney Abbey in 1665 ; died un- 
married in London in 1687. 

V. WiLi-iAM, born at Spinney Abbey in 1667 ; died un- 
married in the East Indies in 1692. 

YI. Elizabeth, born at Whitehall in 1654 ; died at 
Chippenham, 1659, in the house of her maternal grandfather 
Sir Francis Russell. This is the " Sweet Betty " referred to 
in Fleetwood's letter to Henry in 1656. 

VII. Elizabeth, born just after the decease of the pre- 
ceding, therefore taking her name. She married William 
Russell of Fordham, son of Grerard Russell and grandson of 
Sir William Russell the first baronet, — consequently first 
cousin to her mother the Lady Elizabeth. Of this marriage 
the issue was fom-teen children, but the habits of the parents 
appear to have been very unthrifty. Moving for awhile 
among the County gentry, and maintaining with that object 
a style of living far beyond their means, Mr. Russell escaped 
his creditors only in the grave ; and the widow fled with the 
surviving children to London, where she died in 1711. Her 
family was as follows : 

I. O'Brian - William, born 1684, fate un- 
known. 

IL III. IV. y. VI. Henry, John, William, Ed- 
ward, Thomas, died young or unmarried ; two of them 
at sea. 

VII. Francis, bom 1692, became a hosier in Lon- 
don, of whom presently. 



DESCENDANTS OF HENKY CJROMWEI.L. 29 

Of the daughters, about whom the dates are per- 
plexing, Mary married Mr. Robert D'Aye, of whom 
presently. _ Sarah became the wife of Martin Wilkins 
a substantial landowner of Soham, whose two children 
died in infancy. A third, Margaret, married Edward 
Peachey, of whom presently. And a fom^th, name 
unknown, became Mrs. Nelson of Mildenhall, and liad 
a daughter, the wife of Mr. Eedderock a solicitor of 
that place and the mother of several children. 

Issue of Francis the oiih/ man-ied son of WiUiani and 
Elizahcth Russell of Fordhani. 

I. Thomas, born 1724, who, besides a daughter (Rebecca) 
Avho carried on the succession, had a son, William, of whom 
little more seems to be recorded than that he died abroad un- 
married, year unknown ; though it is certain that had he 
survived Sir George Russell of Chippenham who died in 1804, 
he would have succeeded to that antient title. His sister 

II. Rebecca, who died in 1832, by lier second husband 
William Dyer of Ilford, Esq. a magistrate and deputy lieu- 
tenant of Essex, left five chikhen, viz. 1. William- Andrew 

sometime of 34 Gruildford Street, W.C. 2. Charles- Adams' 

formerly of Canewdon Hall, Rochford, Essex. 3. Thomas- 
John, in the East India Company's service. 4. Mary- 
Eliza. 5. Louisa. 

Issue of Mara eldest married dauejhter of WilUam and 
Elizabeth Russell of Fordham'. 

This lady married Mr. Robert D'Aye of Soham and lono- 
outlived him, her jirotracted widowhood being passed a^ 
Soham, where her poverty was in some measiu'e relieved 
by an annual grant from the daughters of the Ex-Pro- 
tector Richard Cromwell, both of whom also bequeathed 
her a legacy ; but as her own death did not occur till ITGo, 
she must have long survived her benefactors. Her family 
consisted of, 1st. A son named Russell, who died at sea 

unmarried. 2. A daughter married to Mr. Saunders, from 

whom she separated. 3. Elizabeth, who introduces us to 

the 

Famili/ of Addison. 

Elizabeth D'Aye, by her marriage in 17G2 with Mr. 
Thomas Addison of Soham became the mother of 



30 thp: hoi'se of cromwell. 

I. Mary, died in childhood. 

II. Ehzaheth, the wife of John Hill, left throe sons , 
John, "William, and Eden. 

III. Mary-Rnssell, born 1764 became the wife of 
Mr. Robert Snnman and died at Lambeth in 1800, 
having had Marj^- Addison who died in youth, and 
Robert, born in 1786. 

IV. and V. Russell and Thomas, twins, born 1767. 
Thomas died in infancy. 

VI. and VII. Frances and William, both died in 
infancy. 

Russell, the only sm'viving son of this family died at the 
age of 25 in 1792. His wife Anne outlived him fifty-four 
years, dying in 1846 at the age of 85. By her he left one son. 

William, a sm^geon of Soham, where he practised laboriously 
for more than half a century, being held in great esteem by 
rich and poor. Beyond this, his life may be described as un- 
eventful ; though it is due to him to state that the Cromwell 
monument forming so striking an object in Soham Chm^ch- 
yard and displaying the descent of the Addisons from Henry 
the Lord- Lieutenant of Ireland downwards, is the expression 
of his hereditary homage. It has been said that the career 
of his great progenitor was not often made by Mr. Addison 
the prominent subject of remark ; yet the present wiiter well 
remembers the flashing up of the old fire at an interview held 
with him many years back, when the old gentleman modestly 
hinted that the Protector's facial lineaments were not yet 
obliterated in his descendants. Many will say that his son 
Thomas the Ely solicitor illustrates the fond belief even more 
than the father did. Mr. Addison died in 1868, having 
married Anne, daughter of Thomas Fox of the Newlands in 
Curdworth, Co. Warwick, farmer ; by whom, who still sur- 
vives at Ely (1879) he had three children. 

I. Thomas-Russell, born 1828, a solicitor practising 
in Ely. 

II. William-Oliver-Cromwell, born 1832, a solicitor 
practising at Brierley Hill, Co. Stafford, married 
Charlotte daughter of Charles Woolverton of Great 
Yarmouth, Esq. and has issue, 1. Charles- William, 
1866.— 2. Charlotte-Barnby, 1869.— 3. Frank, 1870. 
—4. Edith-Maud, 1871. 

III. Henrietta-Fox, married 1859 to George H. 
Rust, son of the late Rev. E. Rust D 'Eye, of Abbotts- 
Hall Stowmarket. Mr. D'Eye, whose eminent qualities 
were first utilized at the Godolphin College at Hammer- 
smith, now conducts a private school at Felixstowe 



DESCENDANTS OF HENRY CROMWEIJ.. 31 

near Ipswich. His own children are eleven in number, 
viz. — 1. Henrietta-Fanny, 1862. — 2. Greore-e-Ecle-ar' 
1863.— 3. Agnes-Elizabeth. 1864.— 4. Isabel, 1866' 
—5. Jane-Louisa, 1868.— 6. Henry, 1869.— 7. Ka- 
tharine-Alice, 1870.-8. Evelyn, 1872.-9. Anne- 
Greorgina, 1874.— 10. Mabel, 1875.— 11. Emily, 1877. 

Issue of Margaret, sixth daughter of William and Elizatjeth 
Russell of Fordham. 

She became as stated above the wife of Mr. Edward Peachey, 
and had an only daughter, Elizabeth, whose husband bore the 
name of Eichard Peachey, but was not related to her father's 
family. By the will of her uncle Martin Wilkins, mentioned 
above,^ who left his real estate to his wife Sarah, some of iha 
lands in Horsecroft and the Great Fen were to descend in re- 
version to Elizabeth daughter of Edward aud Margaret 
Peachey, besides a bequest of £500 and an annuity of £15 
till she attained the age of 21. Signed 1742 ; but by codicil 
m_ 1749 the £500 is revoked, she being now the wife of 
Eichard Peachey. This marriage produced three children, viz. 

I. Eichard, who died unmarried at the age of 20. 

II. William, who in 1780 was of Cambridge Uni- 
versity. 

III. Elizabeth, wife of Eev. Mr. Ellis of Milborne, 
Camb. and the mother of,— 1. Thomas, a solicitor.— 2^ 
William, a surgeon.— 3. Elizabeth, died unmarried. 
4. _A daughter married to Mr. Bm^bage, practising in 
Leicestershire. 



Major Henry Cromwell. 

Dismissing the families descended from the daughters of 
Henry Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, we now revert to his son 
Major Henry CromAvell the only one who carried on the name. 
The politics and religious faith of this gentleman may be 
gathered from the fact of his marrying a young lady Avho only 
the year before had played a more conspicuous part than any 
other of her sex, as intercessor for the victims of Jefferey's 
" Bloody Assizes." This was Hannah, the daughter of Ben- 
jamin Hewling and grand -daughter of William Kyffin, two 
names eminently conspicuous among the Nonconformists of 
that period, and [connexionally] among tlie adherents of the 
unfortunate Duke of Monmouth. Her interviews with 
Churchill and with King James II. in behalf of her brothers 



32 THE HOUSE OF CROMWELL. 

Benjamin and William Hewling being matters of general 
history, are too well known to need recital here. 

Passing then from her public to her private life, we may 
well believe that her devotion to the " Old Cause " was not 
likely to suffer abatement when she came to bear the honoured 
name of Cromwell. It was probably through her influence 
that the Anglican chaplain whom the dowager Lady Crom- 
■well had sustained at Spinney Abbey was deposed in order 
to make room for another chaplain of the Baptist persuasion. 
That mother survived her son's marriage about a year ; and 
under the circimistances of the case we can hardly doubt but 
that the priestly element must have somewhat marred the 
peace of the household. Mark Noble, who evidently has no 
love for the younger Mrs. Cromwell, goes so far as to assert 
that her proselyting zeal " led her husband into such pecu- 
niary inconveniences as obliged him soon after their marriage 
to part with the Abbey of Spinney." But this is sm"ely a 
very random mode of accounting for his financial embarass- 
ments. On the other hand, a sufficient defence of Mrs. 
Cromwell's good management is found in the character of 
the sons whom she reared, and in the honour which those 
sons reflected on her memory by reviving her name among 
their own descendants, and above all by adhering to her 
principles. She was beyond all doubt a courageous and ener- 
getic woman in every department. Nothing short of this 
conviction woidd have seciu'cd the notice and regard of her 
Tory aunt Lady Fauconberg, who was greatly disconcerted 
at the depressed condition of so many of her relatives. After 
considerable solicitation Lady Fauconberg was induced to 
push her nephew's fortunes in the army ; and here we may 
suitably recite one of her letters, as a sample of her style of 
mind, and of her bearing towards her niece Hannah. 

Ladi/ Fniico)/her(/ to Ilenri/ Cro))ur('II of Sputjicy Ahhei/. To 
he left icitli tJie pOHtiiiastcr of Netcniarhct, Ckimhridgexhife. 

29 January [1693 ?] 

Dear Nephew, — This comes to congratulate with you 
after your great fright for your excellent Avife, for her safe 
recovery. And I hope, although she has lost her little one, 
God will bless you both with more. I am very glad to find 
by my cousin Hewling you design shortly for London, where 
I hope to see you both, and give thanks for your kind present 
which came very safe to my hands. And pray tell my good 
niece that her good housewifery is both seen and tasted in it, 



DESCENDANTS OF HENRY CROMWELL. 33 

and that it was as good as ever was eaten. And I must not 
omit telling you that my lord as well as self returns thanks, 
and charges me to assure you both of his humble service. 
All friends here are, I bless God, very well, and present you 
both with their service. And I am, to my dear niece and 
yourself, a most affectionate aunt and servant. 

M. Fauconberg. 

Another fragment of hers dated 1689 thus refers to her 
efforts in Major Henry's behalf : — " Dear Nephew. I re- 
ceived yom"s which this comes in answer to. My lord was on 
Thursday at Hampton Court, where he spake to the King 
[William III] again as for yom* concerns, and your cousin's. 
[Oliver, son of Kichard] But all the answer he could get 
was that he wanted money, and at present did not think of 
raising any more men, — which for your sakes I am concerned 
for. . . ." 

It was principally by the influence of the Dulce of Ormond 
that Mr. Cromwell's promotion in the army was at last 
brought about, " in acknowledgment," as his Grrace always 
declared, " of the great service and benefit which his family 
had received from Henry Cromwell while Lord Lieutenant 
of Ireland." Mr. Cromwell's military status at the time of 
his death was that of Major of foot in Fielding's regiment ; 
he was cut off by fever at Lisbon while serving under Lord 
Gralway in the war against Spain in Queen Anne's reign, in 
1711, being then in his 54th year. His widow, who sm-- 
vived him twenty-one years, appears to have resided in or 
near London, for her burial took place in Bunhill fields. The 
portraits of herself and of her husband, the latter being 
represented as a very handsome man, are still extant, being- 
part of the Brantingsay collection. 



Issue of Major Heunj Cvomiccll and Hannah ILnduKj. 

I. Oliver, bom at Spinney Abbey in 1687, died at Grray's 
Inn in London at the age of sixteen. This was the fourth 
Oliver CromweU who by celibacy or premature death failed 
to carry on the first Protector's name. 

II. Benjamin Hewling, born at Spinney Abbey in 1689 ; 
died at York in 1694. 

III. Henry, born at Spinney Abbey in 1692 ; died in 
infancy. 

IV. William, generally known as '*Mr. Cromwell of 
Kirby Street," was born in the parish of Cripplegate in 
London in 1693. Being bred to the law, he passed a 



34 THE HOUSE OF CROMWELL. 

considerable portion of his life in Grays Inn chambers ; and it 
was not till be reached the age of o7 that he married Mary 
the daughter of William Sherwill of London, merchant, and 
the wealthy widow of Thomas Westby of Ijinton, Camb. 
Esq. consequent on which event he changed his abode to 
Bocking in Essex. The lady herself was sixty years of age 
at the time of this her second marriage, and in the com'se of 
two years after the removal to Bocking she died, and Mr. 
Cromwell thereupon retui'ned to London and spent the 
remainder of his days in Kirby Street, Hatton Garden, where 
his own death occurred in 1772 at the age of 79. Husband 
and wife both lie in the family vault in Bunhill fields. Mrs. 
Cromwell shortly before her second marriage had, in con- 
junction with Mrs. Bromsale, built and endowed at Iloxton 
the row of ten houses long known as " the old maids' alms- 
houses " ; though in fact widows as well as single women 
were embraced in the charity, the only stipulation being that 
they were protestant dissenters. She thoroughly sympathized 
in the outspoken nonconformity which distinguished her hus- 
band's confession of faith, who for fifty years was a member, 
and for nearly thirty years a deacon, of the chm^ch meeting 
at Haberdashers' Ilall ; and there his funeral sermon was 
preached by Dr. Thomas Gibbons. " He appeared," says 
the Doctor, "to be a Christian indeed; not only by abstaining 
from what was gross and scandalous, profane and ungodly, 
but by a spirituality of temper and by attention to inward 
religion and the pulse of his soul towards God ; and indeed 
his sentiments and conduct manifested a happy union of ex- 
perimental and practical godliness. He met, and no wonder, 
in so long a pilgrimage, very heavy afflictions, but never did 
I hear him miu'mur or repine, though I am persuaded he was 

not without quick and keen sensations." "He 

might have had genteel provision made for him in life beyond 
what Providence had otherwise given him, if he could have 
qualified as a member of the chm-ch of England, but he chose 
rather to preserve his conscience inviolate and to remain a 
nonconformist, than advance himself in the world and depart 
from what appeared to him the line of duty," 

It would indeed be matter for surprize had any other course 
appeared open to the son of Hannah Howling. Mr. Howling 
Luson, a son of Hannah's younger sister, bears a correspond- 
ing testimony, speaking of him as " the late Mr. Cromwell 
of Kirby Street, my near relation, and a most benevolent 
humble honest man." Hughes' Letters. The Jom^nal of 
Thomas Hollis the virtuoso chronicles under date 1762 an 
interview with "that worthy old gentleman Mr. William 



DESCENDANTS OF HENRY CROMWELL. 35 

Cromwell tlie great grandson of the Protector"; by whom 
he is then introduced to two nieces, Miss Elizabeth and Miss 
Letitia Cromwell of Hampstead. The portrait gallery of 
these ladies and their museum of family relics are then in- 
spected, disclosing a variety of heir-looms ;-which Mr Hollis 
then describes, but which must be left at present till the 
Brantingsay gallery and other collections of CromweUian 

relics claim a final notice. .,, tt n n 

Mr Cromwell was on friendly terms with Henry Cromwell 
the poet, so well known by his published correspondence with 
Aleiander Pope ; and though the family relationship between 
these two gentlemen was somewhat remote, yet as they both 
derived frSm the knight of Hinchinbrook, they constantly 
maintained the form of calling one another cousin. One 
of William Cromwell's early reminiscences was his having 
dined at Westminster, when a youth, with his great-uncle 
Richard the ex-Protector. There were present on that occasion 
besides himself, Jerry White the chaplain and William Penn 
the Quaker-founder of Pennsylvania. Mr Cromwell ren- 
dered valuable aid to the compilers of Thurloe's State papers 
by contributing a large collection of family documents which 
had come dowS to him from the origmal owners, and which 
are duly notified in the margin of that work. 

V Richard, fifth son of Major Henry Cromwell and 
Hannah Hewling, was born at Hackney in 169o, and became 
an eminent attorney and solicitor m Ckancery In 1/23 on 
his o-reat-grandfather's auspicious clay the third of Septembei, 
he married Sarah the daughter of Ebenezer Catton of South- 
wark, who was also the niece and eventually one of the co- 
heh^eLes of Sir Robert ThornhiU a wealthy f orney of M 
Lion Square. The ceremony was performed by Dr. Echnund 
Gibson the Lord Bishop of London aforesaid, and the place 
selected was the chapel connected with the Banquettmg- 
House in the palace of AVhitehall. Bishop aibson's alliance 
wi?h, and attachment to, the family of the Cromwell s has 
been abeady noticed in the section treatmg of Anna daughter 
of the Protector Richard. Mark Noble thinks that when we 
take into consideration tlie temper of the times, this resolu- 
tion of the prelate to shed a traditional lustre on he 
marriaj?eof one of Oliver's representatives must be accepted 
as a mark of much courage and greatness of mmd,-a senti- 
ment which it may be presumed few if any woiild be un- 
willing to endorse. Bishop Cibson, whose scholarship was of 
the most varied kind, linguistic, antiquarian and forensic, 
was moreover what is commonly understood as a liberal- 
minded churchman ; while in his character of an official 



36 THE HOUSE or CROMWELL. 

censor he poured through the press an unceasing stream of 
pamphlets and cliarges with a view to the reformation of man- 
ners, and by hit; hostility to coiu-t-masquerades provoked the 
enmity of King Greorge II, Perhaps his admiration for 
Oliver was an additional stimulus to the royal displeasure. 

Mr. Kichard Cromwell after his marriage continued to 
reside in London as his place of business, but eventuall}^ 
removed to Hampstead, where he died in 1759, and was 
buried in the family vault in Bunhill Fields. He had pre- 
viously erected there an " altar-monument " to receive family 
inscriptions ; but this relic, like so many others around it, fell 
a prey to neglect, and the inscriptions are now almost obliter- 
ated, excepting the names of his brother William and wife. 
It has recently received at its foot the words, deeply chiselled, 
of '' EICHAED CROMWELL, HIS VAULT. Restored 
by the Corporation of London." It must be with reference 
to this gentleman that the following letter was published in 
the Geiitlonaii'a Magazine for July 1777, — "Mr. Urban. — In 
order to render your former as well as later accounts of Crom- 
well's family as perfect as possible, I must observe that there 
was a Mr. Cromwell, an attorney by profession, with whom I 
frequently conversed, and who was well known to the old 
frequenters of Wills' coffee-house near Lincoln's Inn Gate. 
I do not know in what degree of consanguinity he stood to 
Oliver ; but that he was a descendant of his family none who 
saw him could dovdjt, for he was very like the best pictures of 
Oliver himself. He was respected too as an honest man ; but 
he seemed to have only the external marks of his great pre- 
decessor. I think about the time ' I missed him at the accus- 
tomed tree ' was near twenty years ago, and he then appeared 
to be about seventy years of age. P.T." A subsequent cor- 
respondent conjectured that this might have been Henry the 
sixth child of Hannah Hewling, but Henry's occupation was 
not that of the law — nor do the dates fit so well as with 
Richard. Mr. Richard Cromwell had two sons and four 
daughters. 

I. Robert, born at Bartlett's Buildings. This 
gentleman inherited in right of his mother Sarah 
Gatton a moiety of the manor of Cheshunt park or 
Brantingsay aforesaid ; but djdng unmarried in 1762 
at the age of 37, the said moiety went to his sisters ; 
and the other moiety also came to them eventually 
through the decease s.p. of theii' cousin Peter Hynde, 
only son and heir of Eleanor Gatton. 

II. Oliver, died in infancy. 

III. Elizabeth, died at Hampstead in 1792. 



bfeSCENDANTS OF HENRY CROMWELL. 3? 

lY. Anne, died at Berkhampstead in 1777. 

V. Eleanor, died in infancy. 

VI. Letitia, died at Ilampstead, 1789. 

The siu'vivors of these ladies, namely, Elizabeth and 
Letitia, on inheriting then* brother Robert's estate, quitted 
Berkhampstead, and re-occupied the paternal mansion at 
Hampstead in Middlesex. Among the personal property 
which in like manner descended to them, they came into 
possession of a complete museum of historical relics, including 
a series of family portraits dating from the sixteenth century 
downwards, all which subsequently found a fitting recep- 
tacle at Cheshunt. Elizabeth's death is thus recorded in the 
Gentloiimi's Magazine for November 1792 : — " At Hamp- 
stead, Mrs. Elizabeth Cromwell, eldest daughter and last 
surviving child of Mr. Richard Cromwell grandson of Henry 
Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. She has loft the bulk of her 
fortune to Mr. Oliver Cromwell, attorney, clerk of the 
Million-Bank,— £500 to the childi^en of Mr. Field of Newing- 
ton late an apothecary of Newgate Street, who married her 
cousin her uncle Thomas's daughter ; and a handsome legacy 
to Mrs. Moreland relict of Richard Ilynde Esq. whose 
mother was her maternal aunt, and who with her brother 
jointly possessed Cheshunt park, the moiety of which on his 
death devolved to them, subject to his widow's jointiu-e." 

VI. Henry, sixth son of Major Henry Cromwell and 
Hannah Howling, bom 1698, was for some time in partner- 
ship with his brother Thomas as a wholesale provision mer- 
chant, though he subsequently held a post in the Excise 
office. He died immarried in 1769, and was buried in Bun- 
hill Fields in the vault of his brother Thomas. The inscrip- 
tions on this tomb, like those on Richard's, are now also 
defaced, but the name HENRY CROMWELL has been 
recently cut in strong relief, and the following words, " Dis- 
covered seven feet beneath the surface and restored by the 
Corporation of London, 1869." The ruin which some few 
years ago had with increasing rapidity been overspreading 
the memorials of Bunhill Fields through over-crowding, was 
happily brought to an end when all futm^e interments we^e 
forbidden. Amongst many others, one of the Cromwell 
monuments and also that of Lieut. -Cen. Fleetwood and Lady 
Ilartopp had gone quite out of sight, although both of them, 
especially that of Fleetwood, were capacious structures. The 
place now presents the regular and well-ordered condition of 
a modern suburban cemetery, the curator Mr. James Cash- 
ford being ever on the spot and ready to supply intelligent 
information respecting the historical dead, — Daniel de Foe, 



38 THE HOUSE OF CROMWELL. 

Jolin Bunyan, Isaac Watts, Jolin Wesley's mother, Josepli 
Hart tlie hymn-writer, the Gromwells, and other eminent 
citizens whose names the Corporation of London justly 
decreed to be worthy of everlasting remembrance. 

VII. Thomas, the only one of the eight sons of Major 
Henry Cromwell and Hannah Hewling, whose descendants 
survive, — of whom presently. 

VIII. Olivek, born in Cray's Inn in London, in 1701, 
just after the death of his eldest brother Oliver, and there- 
fore made to succeed him in name. He, like his father, 
served in the British army, and held an Ensigncy in an Irish 
Regiment ; but disliking the situation, resigned his commis- 
sion and passed the rest of his life in privacy, dying unmarried 
in 1748. This is the fifth Oliver Cromwell dying without 
issue. 

IX. Mary, born at Newington Creen in 1691 ; died un- 
married in 1731 ; buried in Bunhill Fields. 

X. IIaxxah, bom at Hackney in 1697; died unmarried 
in 1732. 



THOMAS CROMWELL. 

Seventh son of Major Henry Cromwell and Hannah How- 
ling, born at Hackney in 1699, became, in partnership with 
his brother Henry, a wholesale provision merchant and sugar 
refiner, on Snowhill, adorning that occupation by the habitual 
exhibition of Christian virtues. On quitting business he 
retu-ed to Bridgwater- square, dying in 1748 (or 1752 ?) and 
was bm"ied in Bunhill Fields. He was twice married ; first 
to Frances daughter of John Tidman of London, merchant ; 
and secondly to Mary daughter of Nicholas Skinner of 
London, merchant, of whom hereafter. The issue of the first 
marriage were 

Oliver, Henry, Thomas, and Elizabeth, who all 
died young or unmarried ; and Anne, who in 1753 
was married at Edmonton to John Field an apothecary 
at that time of Newgate Street but afterwards of Stoke- 
Newington, of whom hereafter. 
Mr. Thomas Cromwell by his second wife Mary Skinner 
had 

I. Oliver, his heir. 

II. Thomas, who in 1771 or 1773 died ia the East 
India Company's service just after obtaining a lieuten- 
ancy. 

III. IV. V. VI. Richard, Elizabeth, and Hannah- 



DESCENDANTS OF HENRY CROMWELL. 



39 



Hewling, who all died young ; and Susanna, who for 
many years lived with her widowed mother in Carey 
Street Lincoln's Inn Fields, and is supposed to have 
died at Flamstead-End unmarried about the year 1825. 
As for the widowed mother herself, she sm-vived her hus- 
band more than sixty years, reaching at last the patriarchal 
age of 104 ; in fact she was nearly 105. About the year 
1783, being then 74 years of age, she quitted London in com- 
pany with her daughter Susanna, and took up her final resi- 
dence at Ponders End in the house of her deceased aunt Lady 
Collett who had long been a principal supporter of the Non- 
conformist interest in that village. Before the erection of a 
chapel Lady Collett obtained a licence for holding pubhc 
worship in her own dwelling-house, and until the time of her 
death, procm-ed the aid of preachers for every Lord's Day. 
We may well believe tlierefore that Mrs. Cromwell coming 
among them as the relation and successor of theii* benefac- 
tress, met with a hearty reception ; besides that in virtue of 
her own illustrious name she must have been regarded as an 
object of especial veneration. Lady Collett, whose previous 
history has been sought in vain, was probably the widow of 
some City knight. " Mr. Collett of Hempstead " is one of 
the subscribers to Palmer's Nonconformkts Memoria'. 

Mrs. Cromwell's commmiion with her new frieads as a 
church-member was considerably hindered by her loss of 
hearing, but she found a partial resom-ce in the habitual 
record of her feelings in the form of a Diary which must 
have covered a vast space of time. This chronicle of hep- 
hidden life was destroyed, in fulfdment no doubt of her own 
wishes ; but a fragment or two from its earlier pages have 
been rescued, from the tenom- of which we may gather that 
the successive loss of her husband and children liad been felt 
by her as a very sore affliction. Peferring to the death of 
her daughter Elizabeth above mentioned who died at the age 
of thirteen, she makes the following reflexion. — " My God 
has seen fit in His infinite wisdom to remove another dear 
creatm-e-comfort, a first-born ; one whom His grace niade to 
differ ; whose early piety appeared in her fear of offending 
God, her love to every duty of religion, her strict regard to 
trvith, always dutiful, and conscientiously careful against sin. 
Her life was short but well improved : she made haste and 
delayed not to keep the commandments of the Lord. CoTild 
I follow my dear delights no farther than the grave, I must 
sink under my afllictions, — to see my comforts cbopping off 
like leaves in autunm, wave after wave rolling over me, and 
leaving me a lonely survivor. But religion teaches me to 



40 



THE HOUSE OF CROMWELT-. 



converse with things above, leads me to see where real and 
lasting joys are to he found, and calls me to recollect my 
covenant-engagements, I then resolved to take up my 
cross." On the death of her husband in October 1752 she 

had written, " E'er long my change will come. I 

think I am as weary of sin as of sorrow, tliough Death has 
been my worst enemy. May his next visit be in mercy, and 
may every wave of affliction leave me nearer the heavenly 
shore. Afflictions have drunk up my spirits. Thine arrows 
stick fast in me, and Thine hand presseth me sore. There- 
fore is my spirit overwhelmed within me ; my heart within 
me is desolate. Unless Thy law had been my delight I 
should have perished in my affliction." — With more to the 
same effect, all indicative of a wearied spirit to whom the pros- 
pect of extraordinary length of days would have seemed any- 
thing but attractive, could she have foreseen it. She had, 
however, after her retreat to Ponders End, an abiding conso- 
lation in the character and creditable career of her son Oliver, 
who residing in the neighboming parish of Cheshunt often 
came over to see her, and was able before she died to invoke 
her blessing on seven of his own grandchildren. That he 
also took an interest in the religious community to which his 
mother was attached is evidenced by the appearance of his 
name in a subscription list preserved in the records of that 
church for enlarging the building in 1815, towards which 
object "Oliver Cromwell" gives ten guineas, and "Susannah 
Cromwell " five guineas. 

As might have been expected, Mrs. Cromwell's decease at 
so advanced an age was a very gradual process. Dimness of 
sight so far as to preclude the faculty of reading had been 
added to her other infirmities ; so that, shut out from the 
external world, the attitude of her soul expressed itself in a 
constant desire to depart, and her attendants on entering her 
chamber usually found her on her knees. The 29th of Janu- 
ary 1813 saw the close of her long pilgrimage ; and her 
surviving children Oliver and Susannah, selected as an appro- 
priate motto for her funeral sermon the dying song of the 
Apostle Paul, " I have fought the good fight," &c., which 
sermon, entitled ^' The friiimj)// of /tdtl/," was accordingly 
delivered by John Knight the then minister of Ponders End 
chapel. Pier portrait, taken shortly before her deatli, is in 
the hands of her descendants the Prescott family of Oxford 
Square. Mrs. Cromwell, as also her daughter Susannah, who 
sm-vived her some years, are believed to have been both 
bmied in Bunhill Fields. We have now to treat of her only 
surviving son, 



DESCENDANTS OF HENRY CROMWELL. 41 



OiAVER Cromwell of Ciieshunt. 

Oliver Cro]mwei>l Esq., born in 1742, commenced life as 
a solicitor, but on inheriting tbe Cheshunt estate under tbe 
will of his cousins Elizabeth and Letitia adoj^ted Brantingsay 
as his habitual residence. This estate is not to be confounded 
with Theobald's Park which was never in the possession of 
the Cromwell family. Theobald's Park and the manor of 
Cheshunt belonged to the Prescott family, while Cheshunt 
or Brantingsay park and manor at Theobald's belonged to 
the Cromwell party. The name was formerly spelt Brantings- 
haye. In 1771 Mr. Cromwell espoused Mary daughter and 
co-heir of Morgan Morse Esq. and had two sons and a 
daughter. The first child died in infancy. The birth of the 
second, named Oliver, is thus recorded in the Annual Register 
for 1782. " Birth,— The lady of Oliver Cromwell Esq., of a 
son and heir, at his house in Nicholas Lane. This child is the 
only male heir of the Cromwell family in a lineal descent 
from the memorable Protector of that name." But little 
Oliver, alas, like so many of his predecessors, once more dis- 
appointed the generous hopes of his friends. lie lived but 
three years ; and now the only surviving child was a 
daughter, Elizabeth- Oliveria, born in 1777, and married in 
1801 to Thomas Artemidorus Eussell Esq. 

There seemed at last to be a perilous prospect of the great 
name dying out altogether. Seven times, (if not oftener, for 
imbaptized infants are not always recorded) had descendants of 
the Protector been named Oliver, but a fatality seemed to 
mock the cherished desires of each successive generation, and 
now the patronymic itself was threatened with extinction. 
Under these circumstances it is not sm-prising that Mr. Crom- 
well of Cheshunt should wish his daughter to carry it on, in 
accordance with the com^se usually pm'sued in such cases, by 
her husband's adopting the surname and arms of Cromwell 
either in addition to or in exchange for those of Russell. 
Such a procedure is technically said to be " by royal permis- 
sion ; " and though royalty seldom interferes in such matters, 
yet here was a case in which royalty's instincts seemed sud- 
denly awakened to the susceptibility of an unaccustomed chord. 
True, it was a chord whose vibrations responded to the mere 
ghost of a name. But wliat a name ! Has it (ner been other 
than a word of omen to royal ears during the last two centu- 
ries ? The issue of the alfair is thus recorded by Mr. Burke 
the herald; — " Mr. CromweU wishing to perpetuate the name 



i2 



tllE HOUSE OF CROMWELL. 



of Lis groat ancestor, applied, it is said, in tlie usual quarter 
for p(;rniission tliat his son-in-law should assume the surname 
of Cromwell ; when to his astonishment, considering that such 
requests are usually granted on tlie payment of certain fees 
as a matter of course, tlie permission was ref\ised. Such a 
course of proceeding is too contemptible for comment. Jf/'s- 
torij of ihc Coinino)U'rs, vol. I. p. 43-3. The credit of the re- 
fusal has been variously ascribed to the old King, to the 
Prince Eegont, and to William IV. Sir llobert Heron 
writing in 1812 makes mention of it thus, — "Within the last 
two or tliree years died tli*; last male direct descendant of Oliver 
Cromwell. He was well known to my father and to Sir 
Abraham llume, who lived near liini. They represented him 
as a worthy man of mild manners, much resembling in 
character his immediate ancestor Henry the Lord-Lieutenant 
of Ireland. Early in life his pecuniary circumstances were 
narrowed, but latterly he possessed a comfortable income. 
1I(? was desirous of leaving liis name to his son-in-law Mr. 
Itussell, and applied for His Majesty's permission that lUissell 
should assimie it ; but the old King positively refused it, al- 
ways saying, " No, no — No more Cromwells." Sir llohert 
Ileron^s Noten. Another version of the affair is, that Mr. 
Cromwell becoming appreliensive that tlie change of name 
might, after all, prove a hindrance rather than otherwise to 
his grandchildren's advance in life, allowed the matter to re- 
main in cabeyau(;e ; but tliat tJie scheme was revived by anotlier 
member of the family in a memorial addressed to William IV ; 
and that it was this King and not Greorge III who uttered 
the energetic veto above recorded. 

Mark Noble ol)Herves that the illiberal satires of the cavaliers 
were so indiscriminately levelled against all the members of 
the de})osed family tliat tlie name of Cromwell was of itself 
Biiincic^iit to subject its possessor to iustdt ; — hardly to be 
wondered at, he adds, when some persons of that cast start at 
the word Cromwell even now when we are di-awing near the 
end of the eighteenth century and more than a liundred years 
Hinco tliat family have had the least power. This was written 
in 1785, since which period the number of persons liable to 
this un-English form of oblo(piy have certainly not multi- 
plied ; they seem, indeed, to be rather on the decrease. But 
on this point there will be more to say in a sid:)sequent sec- 
tion, when treating of various modern holders of the name. 

Though the (Jromwells went down, the saintship of 
Charles 1 also suffered eclipse ; and by the middle of the last 
centiuy the doctrine had become so unsavoury that "in order 
to get over the difficulty " as the biographer of Bishop Burgess 



DESCENDANTS OF HENRY CROMWELL 



43 



puts it — it had become usual for both Houses to adjourn over 
the 80th of January, the day appointed for the celebration of 
his martyrdom. 13 ut, alarmed by the fate of Louis XVI, 
King' Croorge III ordered the revival of the service in 1787. 
The Ijishop selected to preach the sermon was Dr. Thomas 
Burgess of St. David's (long after known as the evangelical 
Bishop of Salisbury) who re\'ived ou this occasion all the old 
epithets of execration, — told his auditory of " the murderers 
who had extinguished the light of Israel and entailed Divine 
vengeance on their countrymen." Those countrymen were 
now assm-ed that they had more than over to lament the 
deed, in view of the atrocities throughout Em*opo wdiich the 
example of the Englisli regicide had first provoked. With 
such Bishops at his elbow, the maxim of " no more Croni- 
wells " must have penetrated the very centre of King 
Greorge's heart. 

A writer in the Get/fh'iii(n/'.<i Magaz'nie for June 1777, evi- 
dently an admirer of the Cromwell family, after speaking of 
the decay of their earthly titles, adds, — " but a vein of sin- 
cere piety seems to have spread through and descended with 
them from father to son, and to have been their most distin- 
guished ornament in tlie silent and retired paths of private 
life." And such, it may be added, continued to be their 
characteristic long after the above testimony was delivered. 
If the late IMr. ( -romwell's nonconformity was not so pro- 
nounced as ihat of his inmu'diate progenitors, the liberal 
principles maintained throughout his work on the Civil Wars 
plainly enough tell us where his convictions rested. It were 
no depreciation of that woi'k to say that it was largely built 
on the previous Life of the Protector by Dr. William Harris, 
or to say further that the genius of Macaulay and Carlyle 
subsequently carried the structvu'e to a loftier culmination. 
All that is necessary to prove is that Mr. C-ronnvell fully, 
fairly, and aifectionat(^ly appreciated the Nation's Hero ; and 
in him, the Christian portion of the national conscience. 

Mr. Crimiwell died in 1821 at the age of 7i). His excel- 
lent wife wliose charitable deeds were long remembered in the 
neighbourhood, lived on till 87. On Sundays she was in the 
habit of att(!nding the chapel of the neighbouring college 
(founded by Lady llvmtingdon) in which she was joined by 
her husband and by her sister-in-law Miss Susanna Crom- 
well. Concerning this last-mentioned lady it may here be 
stated in conclusion that she left Ponder's-End after her 
mother's death, and occupied a cottage residence at Elam- 
stead-End in her brother's parish. She survived that brother 
some few years ; and is believed to have been buried in Bun- 
hiU Fields, at all events not in the parish in which she died, 



44 THK HOUSE OF CKOMWEl.L. 

for the family monument at Clieshunt Church records only 
the following names, 

Oliver Cromwell Esq., 1821, aged 79. 

Mary Cromwell his wife, 1831, 87. 

Lieut.-Gen. Aiunstrong his son-in-law, 63. 

Tho. Ai'temidorus Eussell Esq., 1858, 83. 

Eliz. Oliveria, his wife, 1849, 72. 

Ai'temidorus Cromwell Ilussell, 1830, 27. 

Avarilla Aphi-a, his wife, 1827, 21. 

John Eussell Esq., 1830, 82. 

Eliza, wife of John-Henry-Cromwell-Eussell, 1876, 70. 



F(iii/i7i/ of Eussell of Cl/rshiinf Parl\ 

Elizabeth-Oliveria Cromwell, born in 1777, married in 
1801 to Thomas Artemidorus Eussell of Thurston, Co. Here- 
ford Esq., had nine chikben, namely, 

I. Elizabeth-Oliveria, born 1802 ; married 1823 to 
Frederick-Joseph son of George-Frederick Prescott of Theo- 
balds, Herts, Esq., became the mother of ten childi'en. 

1. Freclerick-Greorge, b. 1824 ; d. in infancy. 

2. Emma-Elizabeth, b. 1826 ; mar. 1853 to Her- 
bert Calthorpe son of Lieut-Gen. William Gardner, 
E.A. and by him (who d. 1857) had, surviving issue, 
Herbert-Prescott, b. 1854, and Emma Louisa, b. 
1857. 

3. George-Frederick, vicar of St. Michael's, Pad- 
dington, M.A. Cantab., b. 1827, mar. 1863 to Sarah 
d. of John Horsley Esq. Madras Civil Service ; and 
had— Mary, 1864,— Edward, 1866,— Ernest, 1867,— 
Milcbed, 1871. 

4. Charles- Andrew, banker, and M.A. Cantab., b. 
X829, — mar. 1864 to Emma- Catharine, d. of William 
Harrison Esq. of Westbom-ne Terrace, by whom he 
had four children, — Charlotte- Cromwell, 1865. — 
Charles Cave Cromwell, 1867, d. in childhood. — Oli- 
veria - Cromwell, 1872. — Kenneth - Loder - Cromwell, 
1874. 

5. Edward-Barker, Capt. 33rd Eegiment (Welling- 
ton's) wounded in the Crimea. Medal and clasps. 
Mar. 1857 to Sophia- Victoria, d. of William Cox of 
Gloucester Crescent, Esq. and has a son, Edward- 
Frederick- William, b. 1858. 

6. Lucy-Esther, b. 1833. 



DESCENDANTS OF HENRY (ROMWEIJ.. 45 

7. Augusta-Sophia, b. 1835, — mar. 1873 to Robert 
Burn, Fellow of Trin. Coll. Camb. 

8. Henry-Warner, a banker, b. 1837. 

9. Edgar- Grrote, of the Stock Exchange, and B.A. 
Oxon, b. 1839 — mar. 1865 to Jane-Katharine, d. of 
Edgar Barker Esq. of Oxford Square, and had seven 
children, — Henrj^-Frederick, 1866, — Edward Barker, 
1867,— Edgar-Evelyn, 1869,— Margaret-Ohveria, d. 
in infancy 1871, — Herbert, 1872, — Nelly-Margaret, 
1875,— Isabel-Katharine, 1878. 

10. Oliveria-Louisa, b. 1842. 

II. Artemidorus Cromwell, b. 1803, d. 1830, havino- 
mar. Avarilla-Aphra Armstrong, by whom (who d. 1827) he 
had one d. Avarilla-Oliveria- Cromwell, b. 1826 — mar. 1849 
to Rev. Paul Bush of South Luffenham, now rector of Duloo 
near Liskeard, by whom she had issue, 

1. Thomas- Cromwell, in holy orders, B.A. Oxon, b. 
1851. 

2. Elizabeth-Oliveria, 1852. 

3. James-Graham, in India, 1854. 

4. Paul- Warner, Lieut, in the Royal Navv, b 
1855. ^ 

5. Charles-Cromwell, in India, b. 1857. 

6. Charlotte-Mary- Avarilla, 1858. 

7. Beatrice-Maud, 1860. 

8. Herbert-Cromwell, 1861. 

9. Ethel- Julia, 1863. 

10. G-ertrude-Harriet-Cromwell, 1865. 

11. Mabel-Ottley, 1868. 

III. Maky-Esther, b. 1805,— mar. 1832 to General 
George-Ancbew Armstrong of Hereford, Inspector-General 
of the Hereford Yolunteers. She mar. secondly in 1836 
Thomas Huclcllestone Esq. 

IV. John-Henry-Cromwell, of Sittingbom-n, b. 1806, — 
mar. 1832 to Eliza only d. of Maimce Lievesley Esq. and 
had one d. Eliza-Clementina-Frances-Cromwell, b. 1835. 

V. Thomas- Artemidorus-Cromwell, b. 1808 — d. in in- 
fancy. 

YI. Thomas-Artemidorits, b. 1810 — mar. 1862 — d. 1863. 

VII. Letitia-Cromwell, b. 1812, — mar. 1847 to Frede- 
rick Whitfield of 4 Vane Street Bath, m.d. and had two 
daughters, — Amy, 1848, and Elizabeth (?). Mrs. Whitfield 
died in 1863. 

VIII. Charles- Willlam-Cromwell, b. 1814, d. 1859, 

IX. Emma-Brhjget, b. 1816, — mar. 1834 to Capt. 
Richard Warner, 5th Foot, a descendant of Sir Thomas 



46 THE HOUSE OF CROMWELL. 

"Warner who as one of tlie early explorers of Antigua, ob- 
tained a grant of land there from James I., who also presented 
him with the celebrated ring which (iueen Elizabeth had 
given to Essex. This gem we are informed belonged origi- 
nally to Mary Queen of Scots, and King James's gift of it to 
Sir Thomas Warner was designed as an especial mark of 
favour. Since that time it lias descended from father to son 
in the elder branch of the Warner family. Captain 
Richard Warner d. 1863. The issue of the above marriage 
was as follows. 

1. Ashton-Cromwell, b. 1835. He served through- 
out the Indian mutiny campaign in 1857 — 8, — re- 
ceived a medal with clasps for " Defence of Lucknow" 
and " Lucknow," and a brevet majority ; — retired 
from the 20th Hussars in 1868, — appointed Chief- 
Constable of the Co. Bedford in 1871. Major Warner 
mar. first, 1868 Anne-Greraldine only d. of M. B. 
Jeffreys Esq., and by her (who d. 1871) had one son, 
Ashton-Darell-Cromwell, who d. in infancy. He mar. 
secondly 1872 Elorence-Louisa foui-th d. of the late 
W. Stapleton Piers Esq. and granddaughter of Sir 
John Bennett Piers of Tristernagh Abbey, Co. 
Westmeath, bart. and has issue, — Bridget-Nora- 
Cromwell, 1874. — Lionel-Ashton Piers, 1875. — Mar- 
jorie-Ellin, 1877, — Esther-Hastings, 1878. 

2. Richard-Edward, b. 1836— mar. 1864 to Mary- 
Jametta-Hale d. of Major Constantino Yeoman of 
Sibron, and had issue, Constance-Emma-Cromwell, — 
Leonard-Ottley, — Mary-Challoner, — Basil-Hale, — 
Richard- Cromwell, — Lawrence-Dundas, — Wynyard- 
Alexander, — Marmaduke. 

3. Wynyard-Huddleston, named after his uncle 
General Wynyard of the Grrenadier Gruards who dis- 
tinguished himself in the Crimea. He mar. Jane d. 
of Mr Bell of the Civil Service, E. Ind. Co. 

In the summer of 1849 Mrs. Elizabeth-Oliveria-Cromwell- 
Russell passed away at the age of 72, and in her death the 
English nation had to contemplate the final extinction of the 
Protector's household inheriting the name of Cromwell by 
blood. To the present writer, his personal intercourse with 
the venerable lady is the most interesting fact connected with 
the laboui's of this family history. To watch her passing 
from poitiait to portrait through the Brantingsay gallery, 
and hear her with tremidous voice dwelling on the virtues of 
each successive representative of the House from the Pro- 
tector's parents down to her own father, was to become for 



DESCENDANTS OF HENRY CROMWELL. 47 

awhile the passive recipient of very pleasant sensations, — 
sensations, it may be, too thronging for description, too com- 
plex for analysis ; hut bathed in an aroma such as no other 
domestic legend of English life was capable of kindling. 
We now pass to the families deriving from her great-aunt 
Anne Cromwell. 



FamUij of Field. 

Anne only surviving daughter of Thomas Cromwell of 
Bridgwater Square by his first marriage, married in 1753, at 
Edmonton, John Field an apothecary, at that time of Newgate 
Street, but afterwards of Stoke Newington. There is reason 
to think that this was a union prompted by cordiality of 
religious sentiment, the Fields being of a puritan stock, and 
Mr. Field himself attached to Stoke Newington society. It 
is not Mark Noble Avho tells us this. All he says is that Mr. 
Field was a very intelligent gentleman, and that he dis- 
played great interest in the annals of the family with which 
he was now associated. Nor is there much to add, beyond 
the fact that Mr. Field's medical practice was extensive, and 
that he was the founder in 1765 of the London Annuity 
Society established for the benefit of the widows of its mem- 
bers. This institution, now located at 3 Sergeant's Inn, pos- 
sesses half-length portraits of himself and of his son Henry 
who succeeded him professionally. His living presence we 
are told was a familiar and grateful object to all the dwellers 
in and about Stoke Newington who believed his good natui-e 
to be inexhaustible ; the capacious coach in which he per- 
formed the daily journey into Town being ai3parently at the 
service ©f the public ; for while his personal friends occupied 
the interior, some poor neighbom" was generally to be seen on 
the box. The religious coterie of that subm^ban district, 
clustering round the household of the ex-Ceneral Fleet Avood, 
will be noticed more at large hereafter. Mr. Field's inter- 
com'se must have been witli their succeeding generation. 
His own ancestry derived from Cockenhoe in Heiis, where 
he was born in 1719. His death occurred in 1796, the year 
before that of his wife. Their childi-en now to be noticed are 
nine in number. 

I. Henry, born 1755, rose to high esteem among his 
brethi-en, as testified by the offices which from time to time 
he filled, such as Lectm-er and Treasurer to the Society of 
Apothecaries, one of the Board of health in 1831 for pre- 
vention of cholera, the city of London presenting him with a 



48 THE HOUSE OF CROMWELL. 

silver centre for his table. Among his writings may be men- 
tioned Moiioirs of ihe Botanic Garden at Chelsea. He main- 
tained his powers till his 83rd year when he died at Woodford, 
and was buried at Cheshunt, 1837. His portrait was painted 
for the Apothecaries by R. Pickersgill, and for the Annuity 
Society by 8amiiel Lane ; and an engraving from the latter 
was so skilfully executed by Charles Turner that the family 
regard it as a better likeness than the original painting. Mr. 
Field married in 1784 Esther, daughter of E. Barron of 
AVoolacre House near Deptford, Esq. and by her (Avho died 
1834) left six sons and two daughters. 

1. Hexry Cromwell, born 1785. Succeeded to 
his father's professional position in Newgate Street, 
and became Chairman of the Court of Examiners of 
the Apothecaries' Company. His personal tastes took 
an artistic turn, and led to his becoming an occasional 
exhibitor at the Royal Academy. Shortly before his 
death he was pre[)aring, in co-operation with the chap- 
lain of Charter-house, a book in illustration of that 
establishment. It was whilst in the discharge of his 
duty as resident medical officer there that his death 
occurred instantaneously in 1818, and he was buried 
in the vault of Charter-house chapel. He married 
his cousin Anne, daughter of Thomas Gwinnel, of 
whom hereafter. 

2. Barron, born 1786, died s. p. 1840 at his resi- 
dence at Meadfoot-House, Torquay. Called to the 
bar of the Inner Temple, he became Advocate-fiscal 
at Ceylon, Chief Justice in New South Wales, and 
finally Chief Justice at Gribraltar. Like his brother 
he sought and found a solatium in studios less rigid 
than the law. Dramatic literature became his favoiu-ite 
pursuit. He edited some of the issues of the Shaks- 
peare Society, and was meditating a complete collec- 
tion of Hey wood's works with a biography, at the 
time of his own decease. His widow, Jane, daughter 
of Mr. Carncroft, died at Wimbledon in 1878, aged 86. 

3. Francis- John, born 1791, died suddenly at his 
residence 88 Chester Place, Regent's Park. He held 
in the India House the office of Account ant- General, 
and was the last of that title. He married, 1841, 
Anne, daughter of Edward Barron of Northiam in 
Sussex. 

4. Esther, born 1792, resided near her brother 
Frederick Field the rector of Reepham in Norfolk. 

5. Edmund, born 1799, a Russian merchant of the 



DESCENDANTS OF HENRY CKOMWELL, 49 

firm of Brandt and Co. — retired to Hastings, wliere 
lie became active in works of benevolence and in pic- 
torial studios. 

6. Fredericiv, born 1801. Fellow of Trin, Col. 
Camb. Hector of Roepham, and L.L.D. He resigned 
his rectory on account of almost total deafness, and 
employed his leisure in editing an edition of the Sep- 
tuagint. 

7. Marriott, born 180-3, emigrated to America, 
where he was drowned. His taste was for music, 
besides the construction of three poems entitled Job, 
Ecclesiastes, and the Story of Esther. 

8. Maria-Letitia, born 1805, has long constituted 
one of the Field-colony at Hastings. 

II. Oliver, born 1761, left Worcester for America in 
1799, and died at New York in 1835. His wife was Eliza- 
beth daughter of Thomas Gittings of Shropshire. Their 
family when they left England were very young ; of these, 
Oliver died in childhood ; of the survivors John Joseph and 
Thomas, tAvo of them and the mother paid a visit to England 
many years ago ; but are now, together with their sisters, 
believed to have all married in America. 

III. John, born 1764, — commenced business as a Russia 
merchant ; but discovered before long a remarkable aptitude 
for astronomy and the construction of scientific apparatus. 
These qualities, combined as they were with a character for 
high integrity, becoming known to the G-overnment, his ser» 
vices were secm-ed for the Koyal Mint, where he held the 
office of Umpire between the several departments on the pre- 
cious metals passing between the officers and the Bank of 
England. Among his mechanical inventions, some of which 
were adopted in America and France, may be mentioned a 
counting machine and an improved system of assay-beams 
and weights. He died in 1845 at his residence, Bayswater 
Hill, in his 7Uth year. His portrait, reminding one of 
Pascal, is in the possession of his son Henry. He married 
Mary, only child of Charles Pryer of Tichfield, Hants, Esq. 
and by her, who died 1871, had eight children. 

1, 2 and 3. Henry, Charles, and Frederick, who 
all died young of typhus fever. 

4. Henry William, born 1803. Was for fifty one 
years an able servant of the CroAvn at the Mint, and 
about seven years ago retired to his estate of Mmister 
Lodge on the banks of the Thames near Tecldington. 
Pie entered the Mint at the age of sixteen at the time 
of Lord Maryborough's Mastership, and assisted at 

E 



THE HOUSE OF f'HOMAVEIJ.. 

the great re-coinage then in progress ; the chemical 
skill which he inherited from his father eventually 
finding fuller scope when in 1850 he succeeded to the 
office of Queen's Assay-master (an antient appellation 
subsequently disused.) This was also the period of Sir 
John Herschell's appointment to the Mastership, 
marking an economical crisis in the history of that 
establishment which was long remembered as the 
revolution of '51. In the laboratory Mr. Field was 
ever Sir John's able auxiliary, more especially when 
it was resolved to establish and apply more incontro- 
vertible tests to the quality of bullion devoted to 
coinage. The scientific details of Mr. Field's new 
system of working the Assays cannot here be dis- 
played : it must suffice to say they received Herschell's 
emphatic approbation. A parting message which 
came from his old friend many years after will form a 
suitable voucher. — "I am suffering," says Sir John, 
" under an attack of bronchitis which has lasted me 
all the winter, so excessively severe that I can hardly 
hold the pen, which must excuse the brevity of this ; 
and being now in my eightieth year, I can hope for 
no relief. I shall retain however to the last a pleasing 
recollection of aid and support I received from you 
during the period of my administration of the Mint. 
And I know you will believe me, Ever my dear Sir, 
yom's most truly. J. F. W. HerscheU. Mr. Field in 
1840 married Anna daughter of T. Mills of Coval- 
Hall, Chelmsford, and vicar of Hellions-Bumpstead, 
Essex, and by her, who died in 1868, had. 

I. Mary - Hester - Katherine, mar. 1864 to 
Arthur Evershed of Ampthill, m.d. and has issue 
seven children. 

II. Katharine - Anne - Russell, mar. 1866 to 
Will. Henry Snelling of the Admiralty, of Ash- 
ton Lodge, Selhurst, Esq. and has issue. 

HI. Harriet-Elizabeth-Pryer. 
IV. Frances- Anna-Oily ffe. 
Y. Henry-Cromwell-Beckwith, of Trin. Col. 
Camb. Curate of St. Jude's Liverpool, born 1850. 
VI. Letitia - Eliza, mar. 1876 to Ralph 
Thomas of Doughty Street, solicitor, and has 
issue. 
5. Emma-Katharine, born 1809, lived with her 
widowed mother at Netting Hill, and after her 
mother's decease, removed to Barnes, 



DESCENDANTS OF HENRY CRO..J WELL, 5l 

6. CiiARLEs-FiiEDERicK, bom 1813 ; hold, offico in 
the Admh-alty, married in 1868, Flora-Helen, daughter 
of Charles A. Elderton of the Bengal Medical Staff, 

and had issue, — 1. Charles-John-Elderton, 1869. 

2. Flora- Georgiana, 1870. 3. Oliver-Cromwell, 

1871. 4. Katharine-Mary-Ida, 1875. 

7. Oliver Cromwell, born 1815 : a Commander 
in the Royal Navy, having much in common with 
his renowned ancestor, a man of energy, humanity, 
and prompt action, shewn on various occasions in the 
rescuing of wrecked crews during his several voyoges 
to and from India. 

8. Samuel Pryer, M.A. of Trin. Col. Camb. Yicar 
of Sawbridge worth, born in 1816, died 1878 ; so 
devoted to the study of ecclesiastical architecture that 
he lavished much of his income in restoring the church 
fabrics successively under his care. By his wife, Jane, 
daughter of Admiral Sir W. 11. Pierson, of Langton, 
Hants, he had four children, — 1. Cyril. — 2. Bertha. 
—3. Oliver.— 4. Maud. 

lY. William, fourth son of John Field and Anne Crom- 
well, born 1767, died 1851, of Leam near Warwick. In 
accordance with the Calvanistic theology of his parents, he was 
educated as a Protestant Dissenting Minister, first at Daven- 
try and afterwards at Homerton ; but adopting Unitarian 
principles, was ordained by Dr. Priestley and Mr. Belsham 
to the pastorate of the antient Presbyterian congregation of 
High Street Chapel in Warwick ; and with this was combined 
for twenty two years the oversight of a similar community at 
Kenilworth. He early displayed that literary power both 
political and polemical which he was ever afterwards prompt 
to wield in the advocacy of popular rights, resulting in a vast 
variety of pamphlets belonging chiefly to the period of Lord 
Grrey's first Reform Bill, but embracing also historical works 
such as the Life of his friend Dr. Parr of Hatton, Account 
of the Town and Castle of Warwick, the establishment of a 
public library, and of the Wancick Advertize.)'. His portrait 
painted by Henry Wyatt, and exhibited in 1838, has b3en 
well engraved in large quarto by Charles Turner. The 
Diary of Henry Crabb Robinson gives us a glimpse of the 
domestic life of this family in 1839. Mr. Robinson had been 
spending a fortnight with his friends the Masqueriers of 
Leamington, and adds, — " This excursion has left several 
very agreeable recollections. Among them the most promi- 
nent was my better acquaintance with the Field family. I 
then knew Edwin Field chiefly as the junior partner of 



52 THE HOT^SE OF ('ROMWETJ.. 

Edgar Taylor, who was at that time approaching tho end of 
an honourable and useful life. Mr. and Mrs. Field senior 
were then living in an old-fashioned country-house between 
Leamington and "Warwick. He had long been the minister 
at Warwick, and also kept a highly respectable school. He 
was known by a Life of Dr. Parr, whose intimate friendshij) 
he enjoyed. His wife was also a very superior woman ; I 
had already seen her in London. I heard Mr. Field preach 
on 21 July ; his sermon was sound and practical, opposed to 
metaphysical divinity. He treated it as an idle question, 
(he might have said, a mischievous subtlety) whether works 
were to be considered as a justifying cause of salvation or tlie 
certain consequence of a genuine faith." Vol. III. 178. The 
lady here mentioned was Mary, daughter (by his first wife 
Elizabeth North) of William Wilkins, baptist minister of 
Bom^ton on the Water. She was married to Mr. Field in 
1803, and died in 1848, having had fourteen children, eleven 
of whom siuwivecl their parents in 1851, namely. 

1. E])WARi) WiLKixs, born 1804, an eminent soli- 
citor practising first in Bedford Row, and afterwards 
in Lincolns Inn Fields. His life will be given pre- 
sentl3^ He married, first, Mary Sharpe niece of 
Samuel Rogers the poet, and had one son named 
Rogers after this great-uncle. Mr. Field married 
secondly Letitia daughter of Robert Kinder of Lon- 
don Esq. who became the mother of seven children — 
namely. — I. Basil, 1834, successor to his father. — 
2. Allan. 1835, married Miss Phillips and has five 
daughters. — 3. Walter, 1837, an eminent landscape 
and genre painter, married Miss Cookson daughter of 
W. Strickland Cookson, solicitor, and has seven chil- 
dren.— 4. Mary, 1839.— 5. Grace, 1841.— G. Susan, 
1843.-7. Emily, 1845. 

2. Arthur, born 1800, died unmarried about 
(1845?) 

3. John Hampdex, born 1807, settled and married 
in America. 

4. Ferdinand-Emmans, born 1810, a merchant in 
Birmingham. 

5. Laura, born 1811, married W. Langmead of 
Plymouth. 

G. Algernon Sidney, born 1813, a solicitor at 
Leamington and clerk of the peace for Warwickshire ; 
— mar. Sarah Martin of Birmingham, and has issue 
three sons and two daughters. 

7. Alered, born 1814, merchant in New York, 



DliSCENDAKTS OF HENRY CROMWEI-L. 



53 



where he married the daughter of another emigrant, 
viz Charlotte Errington, whose father a native ot 
Yarmouth in Suffolk, left England in consequence ot 
failure in business. Miss Errington's mother, named 
Notoutt, was descended from an old puritan family 
long known at Ipswich in Suffolk. Alfred Eield has 
issue, one son named Henry Cromwell and one 
daughter named Rosa. . , n^ • n a 

8; Caroline, horn 1810, married llegmald A. 
Parker, solicitor, and has seven chikben. 

9. Alice, born 1817. 

10. Lucy, born 1819. ^ . 

11. Horace, born 1823, architect, twice marned, 
and has two children. 

12. Leonard, born 1824, barrister. 

V Anne, eldest daughter of John Eield and Anne Crom- 
well, born 1756, died 1820, having married in 1787 Thomas 
Gwinnel of AVorcester, merchant. Mr. (jwmnel, who died 
in 1818 aged 08, left five children, namely— 

1. Tiiomas-Cromwell, a solicitor at Worcester, 

died 1835. • tt n 

2. Anne-Sophia, married her cousin Henry Crom- 
well Eield ; see page 48. 

3. Amelia, lived at Hastings with her cousin 

Letitia Eield ; , ^tt ^ 

4. Diana, married Mr. Roberts of Worcester. 

5." Eliza, married Patrick Jolmston of the firm of 
Praed, Pane and Johnston, bankers in Elect Street. 
Their children are— 1. Patrick, a solicitor.— 2. Janet- 
Eliza.— 3. Henry Cromwell, in holy orders.— 4. 
Thomas of Kingston on Thames. 

VI Letitia, second daughter of John Eield and Anne 
Cromwell, became the second wife of Rev. William Willans 
of Boiu-ton on the water, and had four chikbeu, viz. 

1. William, who died young. 

2. Letitia, mar. William Kendall of Bourton, 
solicitor, by whom she has six children,— Herbert 
William, — Amelia-Letitia, — EcUnmid, — Agnes, — 

Harriet,— Henry. _ , ^, . . at ^ 

3. Henry EiELD, a solicitor at Chippmg-M orton ; 
married Miss Spence of that place. 

4. Harrii'.t, married Ceorge Tilsley a sohcitor at 
Chipping-Norton. 

VII VIII IX. Elizabeth, Sophia, Mary; three un- 
married daughters of John Eield and Anne Cromwell. 
Elizabeth died at Stcke Kewington 1781 aged 22, bm^ied 



t)-i THE HOUSE OF CKOMWlilLL. 

at Cheshunt. Mary who resided at Worcester, died in 
1840. 

Life of Edwin Wilkins Field. 

If Edwin Field was not a statesman in the popular sense, 
he was the stimulating agent in bringing about many reforms 
for which professed statesmen have reaped the credit. Yet 
neither was he a law-reformer only. He was a man of un- 
bounded sympathies, and his Cromwellian energy was com- 
bined with versatile capacity. The tactics of war, it is true, 
do not figure among his published treatises, yet none that 
knew him could doubt that he would have occupied a chief 
seat at a time of national difficulty with the same facility 
which he discovered in all other pursuits. 

Born at Leam near Warwick in 1804, and educated at his 
father's school, he was articled in 1821 to Taylor and lioscoe 
of Kings Bench Walk in the Temple. " I remember as if it 
were yesterday," says he in after life, " my good old father's 
wistful look as he left me there. That look has stood me in 
fast stead many a time since." His first action in life was to 
repay that father the expenses occurred in his out-setting. 
The father refused, bat the pious dexterity of the son con- 
trived to fidfil the intention. This generous impulse was the 
animus which pervaded all his subsequent schemes. His 
object was to make the practice of the law square with con- 
sciences as upright and scrupulous as his own. To become a 
law reformer was therefore with him a moral necessity ; and 
to see those reforms carried to a triumphant issue was but 
the fair reward of one who thought it more heroic to abolish 
abuses than to run away from them. His first essays in the 
Legal Observer had reference to the law respecting marriages 
abroad between English subjects within the prohibited de- 
grees. This was in 1840 ; but his grand attack during the 
same year was directed against the Court of Chancery, and 
the 8ix-Clerks-0ffice in particular. Lords Brougham and 
Cottenham had begun to clear the ground, but the crisis was 
not precipitated until Mr. Field led the public voice. Details 
cannot be enlarged on here, but the judgment of contempo- 
raries may establish the verdict. Spence, in his Equity Juris- 
prudence, says, " To Mr. Field's exertions, enforced by Mr. 
Pemberton, the Court of Chancery is in great part indebted 
for the late improvements." John Wainewright, formerly 
one of the sworn clerks and now taxing-master says in a letter 
written since Mr. Field's death that his friend was " the first 
person who j)ractically brought about this change." And 



DESCENDANTS OF HENRY CllOMWELL. 55 

Robert Bayley Follett, also a taxing-master, says, " I always 
considered the abolition of the Six-Clerks-Office due to E. W. 
Field." 

The removal of one monster grievance ensures the fall of 
many parasitical institutions. Mr. Field had abundance of 
work before him ; but success had now energized his arm and 
inspired his friends with confidence. After the year 184C 
there was scarcely a lioyal Commission or Parliamentary 
Committee on Chancery reform or general legal questions be- 
fore wJiich he was not called upon to give evidence. Extracts 
from the list of his published writings may serve as an index 
to his subsequent services. Thus in the WesfmiuHfer Eerieio 
Feb. 1843, we have, " Hecent and future law-reforms," — 
"Judicial procedure a single and inductive science." In the 
L((w Review Aug. 1848, " Comparative anatomy of judicial 
procedure," reprinted in the New York Evening Post. 
Pamphlet " on the right of the public to form limited liability 
partnerships and on the theory practice and costs of commer- 
cial charters." — " On the roots and evils of the law," — 
" Economical considerations on the autocracy of the Bar and 
on the system of prescribed tariffs for legal wages." A paper 
read at Manchester in 1857 — "What should a Minister of 
Justice do ?" A treatise before the metroi")olitan and pro- 
vincial Law Association held in London 1859 on "Legal 
education and the comparative anatomy of legal, medical, and 
other professional education," — Correspondence with C. Gr. 
Loring the eminent American advocate on the present rela- 
tions between Grreat Britain and the United States. — " On 
the proj^erty of married women," published in the Times. 

Brought up among the English Presbyterians, Mr. Field 
was not disposed to sit down quietly under the partial legisla- 
tion which was still enforced against Unitarians under cover 
of the notorious Lady Hewley case ; and accordingly by the 
Dissenters-Chapels Bill of 1844 he upset that legislature for 
ever. This is quickly told, but the struggle while it lasted 
was arduous, and to many appeared hopeless ; even his con- 
stant friend and ally Crabb Pobinson despaired of attacking 
entrenched Orthodoxy ; but a band of resolute men who for 
many months sat on the question dc die in diem, had at length 
a long conference with the Mmister, Sir Pobert Peel, Mr. 
Field acting as spokesman. In brief, the enemy's position 
was turned. Sir Pobert, though a political opponent, promptly 
undertook to make it a Grovernment measure ; while the 
elaborate historical argument with whicli Mr. Gladstone 
swayed the Commons on that occasion 'as mainly furnished 
by Mr. Field. 



56 



THE HOUSE OV CROMWELL. 



It was Mr. Field's belief that few schemes would more 
tend to simplify and quicken legal operations than the con- 
centration of all the Courts of Justice and offices of the law 
into one building. For thirty years before the passing of the 
Courts of Justice Building Act of 1865 he had urged the 
measure ; and when at last a Royal Commission was issued 
to obtain and approve a plan upon which the new Courts 
should be built, it was natural that her Majesty should ap- 
point " her trusty and well-beloved EdAvin AVilkins Field to 
be the Secretary to the Commission." For his arduous duties 
in this capacity extending over three years, embracing a 
thorough mastery of the details of the vast fabric, preparing 
instructions for the competing architects, and drawing up 
elaborate reports, Mr. Field refused all remuneration. But 
the firm of which he was the head were appointed by the 
Board of Works solicitors for acquiring the new site; and 
under his vigorous superintendence a very short time sufficed 
to clear the ground for an architectural pile which will not 
be complete without some artistic memorial of the enthusiastic 
Secretary. 

He was an ardent lover of nature, and of the pictorial 
renderings by which true poetry alone can apprehend her. 
Much of the interest which as a member of the Council of 
University College he took in that institution, assumed this 
form ; as shewn in his co-operating with Crabb Robinson in 
the formation of the Flaxman Gallery and the establishment 
of the Slade School of Art ; in all which, as well as in the 
legislation which from time to time he put into motion for 
the furtherance of Art and its professors, his advice and 
assistance were spontaneous. " No labour," says he, " that 
I can ever give on this subject will repay the obligations I 
am under to art and to artists for a great deal of the pleasm^e 
of my life." " I reverence art. I look upon it as one of the 
divdnest gifts of our nature. Develope a love of art in every 
way. It will give you new eyes wherewith to draw in and 
make part of yom^self the very beauty of nature and new 
uudreamt-of capacities for enjoying it. It will assuredly 
improve and elevate your character." Accustomed as he was 
to be consulted in matters of taste, it awoke no suspicion 
when Mr. T. Cobb, one of his former clerks, asked him one 
day what painter he would recommend under the following 
circumstances. A number of clerks in a London office had sub- 
scribed to get the portrait of their master executed in the best 
style, and it was thought they coidd not liave a better adviser 
than Mr. Field. After a little fm-ther explanation he replied, 
"Watson Gordon is your man." — "But, Sir," said Cobb, 



DESCENDANTS OF HliNRY CROMWELL. C»7 

u Sir Watson raints only in Edinburgh, -clw^^ doubt whether 
Hs sitter would consent to travel so far - ihen, i^J^"^^ 
Mr. Field, " tell the young men to drag Inm there , he ough 
to he proud of such a request ' In due tnne Mi^ 1 ^^^^^^^^^^ 
himself requested to go to Edinburgh and sit to Sn Watson 
Gordon for a painting to be presented to ^-^ Jf j^'^^^ J^^^"^ 
gratulate me," he wrote to Crabb Kobmson, ; A hu died ot 
my old clerks have subscribed to have my portrait P^^^^^d - 
men I have tyrannized 0ver,-bunied -taken the praise from 
X'h they really M earned, who knew every bit of humbug 
il me,-no sense of favours to come. Eegard from such a 
l^ociv is worth having." The picture is now at the family 
Sence ^ Squire's^Mount, lUpstead wi^th the names o 
the hundred subscribers displayed on the frame. A^othei 
characteristic likeness is preserved m J P^«j;}^7.r^"X^^ 
son Walter,-a river scene, in which Mr. Field together with 
part of his family is represented in the en]oymerit of one of 
his favourite pursuits, that of boating o^A^J 7'',^ 1^. 
has been said of him that "not Izaac Waltmi loved h 
tvomite river more than Mr. Field_ loved the Thames 
Like the painter Turner he descried m its varied aspects sug- 
P-estive materiel for boundless poetry; and m order fully to 
drink in its influences, he took for holiday purposes a lease of 
Tl Mill-house, Cleve, near Goring. Yet tl^^ Tha^nes becaine 
the disastrous scene of his death. On the 30th of July 18/ 1 
the boat in which he was sailing with two of his clerks was 
m'set by a gale of wind. One of the party, named El wood, 
as well as Mr. Field himself, was a swimmer ; the third, who 
could not swim, was the sole survivor ; and all that this sur- 
vivor could recollect about the affair was that he had at first 
o-one down, but afterwards found himself supported by his 
two friends who held on to the boat and were makmg for the 
sKore —that eventually Mr. EUwood sank, and soon after- 
wards Mr. Field also. Five days later, at the Highgate 
Cemetery, Edwin Field was laid in a vault next to that m 
which sleeps his friend Henry Crabb llobinson His age 
was sixty seven. The above facts are derived from A 
Memorial "drawn up by his friend Thomas Sadler Ph. D. 
and published by Macmillan in 1872_, aboundmg with anec- 
dotes and details of a highly interestmg nature but far too 
copious for adoption in this place. It may also be here stated 
tiiit notices of the various members of the Field family will 
be foimd scattered up and down the biographies of Crabb 
Kobinson, Sergeant Talfourd, and Chn.-les Lamb. Here is 
one example, having reference to Mr. Barron Iield- 
" Charles Lamb, in one of his letters to Bernard Barton, 



oS THE HOUSE OF CR0MW£LL. 

while humorously recording his neglect of some of the details 
of social life^ says, " All the time I was at the East India 
House I never mended a pen. When I write to a great man 
at the Court end, he opens with surprize upon a naked note 
such as Whitechapel people interchange, with no sweet 
degrees of envelope. I never enclosed one bit of paper in 
another, nor understood the rationale of it. Once only I 
sealed with borrowed wax, to set Sir Walter Scott a won- 
dering, signed with the imperial quartered arms of England, 
which my friend Field bears in compliment to his descent in 
the female line from Oliver Cromwell. It nmst have set his 
antiquarian curiosity upon watering." — TalfounVs Life and 
Letters of Lamb. 



JAMES 

FIFTH SON OF THE PEOTEOTOE. 

Named after his maternal grandfather Sir James Bour- 
chier, was baptized 8 January 1G32 at St Johns Church in 
Huntingdon, where also he was buried on the following 
day. 



BRIDGET 

ELDEST DAUaHTEE OF THE PEOTECTOE 

Baptized at St John's Chiu'ch Huntingdon 5 August 1624, 
was married first to Henry Ireton in J 646, and secondly to 
Charles Fleetwood, probably in the early part of 1652. Her 
marriage with Ireton took place just before the completion of 
the first civil war, while Fairfax was investing the city of 
Oxford ; and at Ilolton St Bartholomew, some six miles dis- 
tant from the walls and conjectured to have been the Oene- 
ral's head-quarters, the affair is thus chronicled in the parish 
register, — " 15 Jime 1646. Henry Ireton, Commissary- 
General to Sir Thomas Fairfax, and Bridget daughter to 
Oliver Cromwell, Lieutenant-General of the Horse to the 



bRlUGET CROMWELL. 69 

said Sii' Thomas Fairfax, were married by Mr. L»eli in the 
Lady Whorwood's house in Holton. Alban Eales, rector." 
Dell was Fairfax's chaplain. The antient manor-house, which 
was surrounded by a moat, was taken down in 1804 and the 
present mansion built upon its site. Near the place a large 
number of skeletons were once unearthed ; supposed to have 
been the victims of some scrimmage in the Civil war time, as 
the bodies were near the surface and had been thrown in pro- 
miscuously. 

Henry Ireton, descended from a good family seated at 
Attenborough, Co. Nottingham, was brought up to the law ; 
but when the civil contests commenced, his puritan and patri- 
otic principles found more congenial play in the Parliament's 
army, where the inflexible character of his mind acted as a 
buttress and stimulant even to that of Cromwell. Strong 
sympathies early drew the men together, and during the 
principal passages of the war they acted in concert. After 
the King's death Ireton accompanied his father-in-law to 
Ireland, and being left by him there in the capacity of Lord 
Deputy, he completed the subjugation of the natives with 
rare vigour and ability ; his determination to show no mercy 
on any who were proved guilty of taking part in the massacre 
of the Protestants in 1640 subjecting him as a matter of 
course to the charge of wanton cruelty. Having crowned his 
sublunary career with the capture of Limerick in 1651, he 
was seized with a pestilential disease and died there, in the 
presence of his brother-in-law Henry Cromwell, sincerely 
lamented by the Eepublicans who revered him as a soldier, a 
statesman, and a saint. He received a public funeral in 
Westminster Abbey, Oliver Cromwell walking as cliief 
mourner, attended by several members of Parliament. The 
House passed a bill for settling an estate of £2000 per 
annum on the widow and children, a gift which had in fact 
been offered a few months previously to Ireton himself, but 
he nobly refused it, urging in reply, that the Parliament had 
many just debts which he desii-ed they would pay before they 
made any such presents. For himself, he had no need of 
their land, and would be far better pleased to see them doing 
the service of the nation than so liberal in disposing of the 
public treasure. And truly, adds his friend Ludlow, " I be- 
lieve he was in earnest ; for as he was always careful to hus- 
band those things that belonged to the State to the best 
advantage, so was he most liberal in employing his own 
purse and person in the public service." Ludloiifs Memoirs 
I. 371. 

At the Eestoration of Charles II. Ireton's body, like that 



GO thp: house of cromwell. 

of ]iis fatlier-in-law and of Bradsliaw, was taken from its 
toniL in Westminster Abbey and hung on tlie Tjbnrn gal- 
lows, an action fitly corresponding with the slanders hy which 
his enemies had long assailed the reputation of one of the 
most true-hearted, chivalrous, and generous men that ever 
bled for England. He was not a whit overpraised in the 
sermon preached at his funeral in Westminster A-bbey by 
Dr. John Owen, 6 Feb. 1652, and with the recital of the 
dedication of that performance to Henry Cromwell, his 
character may be dismissed. The text was from Daniel xii. 
13. But go thou thy way till the end be ; for thou shalt 
rest and stand in thy lot at the end of the days. 



To the. Itoiwurahle ami iii// rci'// iroiil/// friend Colonel Henry 

CronireU. 

Sir, — The ensuing sermon was preached upon as sad an 
occasion as on any particular account hath been given to this 
nation in this our generation. It is now published at the 
desire of very many who love the savour of that perfume 
which is diffused with the memory of the noble person par- 
ticularly mentioned herein. It was in my thoughts to direct 
it immediately to her [the widow] who was most nearly con- 
cerned in him. But having observed how near she hath been 
to be swallowed up of sorrow, and with what slow progress 
He who took care to seal up instruction to her soul by all 
dispensations, hatli given her hitherto towards a conquest 
thereof, I was not willing to offer a new occasion to the mid- 
titude of her perplexed thoughts. In the meantime Sir, 
these lines are to you. Your near relation to that rare ex- 
ample of righteousness, faith, holiness, zeal, courage, self- 
denial, love to his country, wisdom, and industry, the mutual 
tender att'eetion between yon whilst he was living, yoiu' pre- 
sence with him in liis last trial and conflict, yom* design of 
looking into and following his steps and pui'pose in the work 
of Grod and his generation, as such an accomplished pattern as 
few ages have produced the like ; — [all these] did easily 
induce me hereunto. I have nothing to express concerning 
j ourself but only my desires that yoiu^ heart may be fixed to 
tlie Ijord God of your fathers ; and that in the midst of all 
the temptations and opposition wherewith yoiu- pilgrimage 
will be attended, you may be carried on and established in 
your inward subjection to, and outward contending for, the 
Kingdom of the Dearly Beloved of our souls ; not fainting 
nor waxing weary until you also receive your dismission to 



BRIDGET CROMWELL. 61 

rest for your lot in the end of the days. Sh', your most 

humble and affectionate servant 

[slifjltf/// al) ridged.'] John Owex. 

Upon Ireton's death, Cromwell fixed upon Charles Fleet- 
wood to marry his widow. The Fleetwoods deriving from an 
antient stock in Lancashire had recently made rapid progress 
in honours. In the civil war they became like many others 
a divided family ; for while Sir AVilliam Fleetwood of Aid- 
winkle and Woodstock suffered for the King, two of his sons 
were in the opposite ranks. Greorge was a Colonel in the 
Parliament's army, and sat on the tribunal which condemned 
the King. Charles became Oliver Cromwell's son-in-law and 
Commander in chief of the forces in England ; and both were 
nominated Lords in his Upper House. Nay, it has always 
been a sort of conjectural creed with many that Oliver de- 
signed Charles Fleetwood as successor to himself in the Pro- 
tectorate, but that the instrument or will to that effect was 
not discoverable when wanted. Is it not Lord Broghill who 
unhesitatingly declares that such was the case, and that the 
fair spoiler who discovered and burnt the document was one 
of the Protector's oavu daughters ? 

What sort of Protector Fleetwood would have made, it 
were vain to surmise. Entertaining in thooiy many of the 
maxims of his father-in-law, but totally wanting in his moral 
ascendancy and personal prowess, he was compelled before 
long to make the unwelcome discovery that the reign of the 
saints was not to be perpetuated by any artillery at his com- 
mand. Sorely perplexed indeed he was to apprehend what 
was " the voice " of Providence, (such was the term constantly 
on his lips) in committing to his hands the Commandership 
of the national forces, if those hands must remain tied ; a state 
of mind Avhich resulted in successive actions of vacillation, all 
arguing it may be a tender conscience but leaving him at the 
mercy of less scrupulous men. Impatience at witnessing the 
elevation of his pacific nephew liichard (Jromwell must also 
it seems be placed to his account ; and it was the factious 
cou.rse which he thereupon thought fit to pm'sue, which drew 
from Henry, then in Ireland, the memorable and oft quoted 
letter, exposing the folly and wickedness of using the Army 
in defence of any sectional form of faith. No doubt the good 
man learnt the meaning of all the " voices " during tlio 
leisurely seclusion of his after-days at Stoke Newington, but 
failing to read them rightly when they arose he fought an 
uncertain battle which could only issue in anarchy. 

When at last the factions of the horn- had exhausted 



62 THE HOUSE OF CROMWELL. 

themselves and tlie return of Charles II became inevitable, 
Fleetwood's puritan principles and llioretic objections to the 
Kingly office made him still liesitate to adopt those con- 
ciliatory measures by which other jirominent agents mi- 
tigated the coming wrath. Still less was he capable of 
imitating the craven example of his brother George, who 
sought to shelter himself at the expense of his friends, and 
even attributed his personal share in the ro}'al deathwarrant 
to " Cromwell's threats and insinuations." Charles Fleet- 
wood indeed was not implicated in that affair ; consequently 
the penalty which overtook him was limited to degradation 
and partial confiscation. He passed from the activities of 
a camp to the social obscurity of a meek Dissenter " pur- 
suing the even tenom- of his way " in the subm-ban region 
of Stoke Newington, — subject of course to tiie periodical 
incursions of that graceless crew, the common informers 
against meeting-houses, but otherwise permitted to fight his 
battles o'er again in the peaceful arena of his own fire-side. 
Stoke Newington thus became early conspicuous as the chosen 
asylum of some of the more wealthy puritan families ; and 
the fines levied there on the Fleetwoods, Hartopjis, and others 
of their non-conforming associates amounted in no long time 
to six or seven thousand pounds. Meanwhile, his royalist 
father, Sir William, resumed his antient position at Com't in 
the capacity of cup-bearer to the restored Monarch. 

But it was not to Stoke Newington that Charles Fleetwood 
first fled to escape the returning torrent of royalism. He was 
naturally attracted to Feltwell St. Mary in Norfolk where an 
estate had descended to his first wife or her heirs. This first 
wife was Frances, sole daughter and eventual heiress of. 
Thomas Smyth of Whinston in Norfolk, Esq. and Fleet- 
woods retirement to this place may be reasonably regarded as 
contemporary with the death of his second wife Bridget Crom- 
well. Having reached which point, it will be best, before 
proceeding fm-ther with Fleetwood's own affairs, to conclude 
the personal history of that excellent lady. 

Bridget Cromwell belonged to the Puritan party par 
excellence; to which result the characters of both her 
husbands greatly contributed. The confederacy of Hem-y 
Ireton, Charles Fleetwood, Edmimd Ludlow, John Hutchin- 
son and their associates, most of them being Baptists, repre- 
sented the root and branch section of the anti-monarchists. 
Ludlow ardently admired Bridget's first husband, but could 
never be reconciled to her father ; while Mrs. Colonel Hut- 
chinson's Memoir betrays the same envious spirit against the 
entire family of the Protector, always excepting her dear 



BTllDGET CROMWELL. 63 

friend Bridget. Oliver's wife and children, says she, " were 
setting up for principality, which suited no better with any 
of them than scarlet on the ape. Only to speak the truth of 
Oliver himself, he had much natural greatness and well 
became the place he had usurped. His daughter Fleetwood 
was humbled and not exalted with these things ; but the rest 
were insolent fools." Insolent fools ! and this language was 
meant to apply to all the ladies of the Protector's family 
except Bridget ! 

But there was no lack of cordiality between Bridget and her 
father, however her OAvn familiar friends might misunderstand 
him. She became too the mother of a daughter, the renowned 
Mrs. Bendysh, who, more than any other person in the suc- 
ceeding generation, judged him aright and reflected his cha- 
racter. Fortunately there are sufficient materials in Oliver's 
coiTcspondence to illustrate his estimate of Bridget's piety 
and his care to foster it. The first letter to be noticed was 
sent to her a few months after her first marriage, and consti- 
tutes one of the choicest gems of the Cromwellian biography. 
The " sister Claypole " referred to was Elizabeth Cromwell, 
who had also been very recently married. 

" For my hclored daughfer Bridget Irefon, at Cornhury the 
Gencrars Quarters. 

London, 25 October 1646. 
Dear Daughter. I write not to thy husband, partly to 
avoid trouble, for one line of mine begets many of his, which 
I doubt makes him sit up too late ; partly because I am 
myself indisposed at this time, having some other considera- 
tions. Yom' friends at Ely are well. Your sister Claypole 
is, I trust, in mercy exercised with some perplexed thoughts, 
she sees her own vanity and carnal mind ; bewailing it. She 
seeks after, as I hope also, what will satisfy, And thus to 
be a seeker, is to be of the best sect next to a finder ; and 
such an one shall every faithful himible seeker be at the end. 
Happy seeker, happy finder ! Who ever tasted that the Lord 
is gracious, without some sense of self vanity and badness ? 
Who ever tasted that graciousness of His, and could go less 
in desire, — less than pressing after full enjoyment ? Dear 
heart, press on. Let not husband, let not any thing cool thy 
affections after Christ. I hope he [thy husband] will be an 
occasion to inflame them. That which is best worthy of love 
in thy husband is that of the image of Christ he bears. 
Look on that and love it best, and all the rest for that. I 
pray for thee and him. Do so for me. My service and dear 



64 THE HOrsE (W CROMAVELIn 

affections to the General [Fairfax] and Generaless. I hear 
she is very kind to thee. It adds to all other obligations. I 
am, Thy dear Father, 

Oliver Cro:mwell." 

In the next extant letter she is addressed, not as the wife 
of Ireton, but as that of Fleetwood, on her second arrival in 
Ireland. It is not difficult to see that this second visit had 
something depressing about it. Her first experiences of Irish 
life had been in company with the gallant Ireton, but now 
her heart seems to have been yearning for the cliildren whom 
we judge to have been left behind her in England. What- 
ever it was, her father evidently felt that there was need for 
solace and encouragement. But, first of all, he seeks to 
silence her groundless anxieties, as though she were the victim 
of penal discipline. " The voice of fear," says he, "is. If I 
had done this, or avoided that, how well it had been with me. 
(This I know hath been her vain reasoning.) Whereas, love 
arguetli on this wise. What a Christ have I, — What a Father 
in and through him, — What a name hath my Father, mer- 
ciful, gracious, long suffering, abundant in goodness and 
truth, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin. What a 
nature hath my Father. He is love, free in it, unchangeable, 
infinite. What a Covenant between Him and Christ for all 
the seed, for every one ; wherein He undertakes all, and tlie 
poor soul nothing. And shall we seelc for the root of om' 
comforts within oiu'selves ? Acts of obedience are not perfect, 
and therefore yield not perfect grace. Faith, as an act, yields 
it not but only as it carries us into Him who is oiu' perfect 
rest and peace, in whom we are accounted of and received by 
the Father even as Christ himself. This is om- high calling. 
Eest we here, and here only." He concludes by assming her 
that her two children, "the boy and Betty, are very well." 
The boy is Henry Ireton ; but Betty may be either Elizabeth 
or Bridget ? 

A tliird letter from her father dated two years later and 
directed to Fleetwood, is in a similar strain as concerning 
herself, and need not therefore be quoted. On retmniing to 
England with her husband and the infant cliildren born to 
them in Dublin, she had to witness during the next three 
years the series of events issuing in the culmination of her 
father's career, his lamented death, and the downfall of his 
family. Amid the national confusions which prepared the 
way for the Restoration, she did her utmost to sustain her 
husband in some sort of consistent action, but his scrupulous 
conscience proved a very intractable factor in that whirlpool 



BRIDf.KT CROMWELL. 65 

and conflict of second-rate men. Edmund Ludlow has re- 
corded a scene in wliich with tears she besought his counsel 
and aid. But what was Ludlow, or all his party, in that 
hour of darkness ? For him as for her, flight and obscurity 
were the only refuge. We can but conjecture the rest. 
Lamenting less the loss of her own station than the total 
overthrow of her father's giant schemes in the Protestant be- 
half, she must have looked upon the conduct of public men 
around her, in their frantic haste to recall the King, as one 
of the most humiliating spectacles that any nation ever pre- 
sented. It has been said that she disapproved of her father's 
elevation to the supreme power ; and very possibly she may 
in former years have entertained theoretical objections to such 
a measm-e, especiall}^ when she lived in companionship with 
Ireton ; but as the objects of his reign unfolded themselves, 
we choose rather to believe that, like her daughter Mrs. 
Bendysh, she came to recognise his advent as a special boon 
from Heaven to a thankless race, and that her dying hours 
were cheered by the conviction that he too had lighted a 
candle in England which by Grod's grace would never go out. 
The place of her death is uncertain, but her burial is recorded 
at St. Anne's, Blackfriars, 1 July, 1662. Few if any of her 
letters smwive except the following one which she sent back 
from England to her brother Henry when he superseded 
her own husband Fleetwood in the government of Ireland. 



Mrs. Bridget Flceficood to Henry CroiiuceU Lord Deputy in 
Ireland, date 1657 i^f). 

Deaii Brother, — I am very unfit and unapt to write, and 
yet I would not altogether neglect to stii- up that affection 
which ought to be betwixt so near relations, and is very apt 
to decay. I blame none but myself. I desire rather so to do 
than to lay it upon others, or to be a judge of others. I could 
wish there had not been so much occasion of ih.^ contrary, 
wherein my coiTupt heart hath taken advantage. I desire to 
be humbled for it, and not to give way, whatever others' uu- 
kindness may be, to weaken that love and affection which 
ought to be and is the desire of my soul to defend and 
nom-ish in me towards yourself, though it may be not much 
eared for. Yet however I shall labour to be found in my 
duty, which is to be, — Yom- dear and affectionate sister, 

Bridget Fleetwood. 

The next thing to be noticed in the career of her surviving 

I' 



66 THE TTOrSE OF CROMWELL. 

husband Cherries Fleetwood is liIs third marriage, namely 
with the dowager Lady Mary Ilartopp of Newington, Midx., 
described in the marriage allegation as a widow of about 
forty, his own age being fifty. This was in 1663 ; and as 
the result of this new connexion, we are henceforth to con- 
template the combined families as permanently settled in the 
large, old, rambling red-brick mansion of the Elizabethan 
style known in modern times as Fleetwood-house, standing on 
the north side of Chui'ch Street, close to what is now the 
south entrance to Abney-Park Cemetery. Properly speaking, 
it consisted of two houses renovated or modified at various 
times, and serving to accommodate the Hartopp and Fleet- 
wood families with all their dependencies. Under Fleet- 
wood's portion of the roof were now therefore grouped, — 
first, the children of his first wife Frances Smyth who left 
two sons and a daughter, — secondly, the three daughters of 
his second wife Bridget Cromwell by Henry Ireton, — thirdly, 
his own surviving children by that lady, three or four per- 
haps in nimiber, — lastly, his third wife Dame Mary Hartopp, 
with such children as she had, if any. 

Lady Hartopp was the daughter of Sir John Coke of Mel- 
bourne, one of the Secretaries of State to Charles I., and 
widow of Sir Edward Hartopp the second baronet of Freathby. 
Consequent on her new alliance, it came to pass that her son 
Sir John Hartopp the third baronet and her daughter Mary 
respectively married a daughter and son of Fleetwood's first 
wife Miss Smyth. Nor was this the only link between them ; 
for persecution from without strengthened the harmony of 
home ; and the distinguished names which made Stoke 
Newington a very metropolis of Dissent, combined with the 
other followers of Dr. John Owen to supply within the radius 
of their own circle all the materials for refined and elevated 
fellowship. It will simplify our view of this suburban 
coterie if we contemplate it as largely consisting of such 
portions of the Cromwellian connexions as fell into the ranks 
of Dissent consequent on the Uniformity Act of 1662, and 
gathered under the pastorate of Dr. John Owen (Oliver's 
quondam vice-chancellor at Oxford). To the Stoke Newing- 
ton names of Ireton, Fleetwood, Hartoj)p, Gould, Gunston, 
Cooke, Field, Hmdock, Abney, we must therefore add those 
of Colonel Disbrowe brother-in-law to the Protector, Colonel 
James Berry, Lady Vere Wilkinson, Lady Haversham a 
daughter of the Earl of Anglesea &.c. &g. The society sub- 
sequently included Dr. Isaac Watts, but this was some years 
later, and not till after Fleetwood's death. It may be pre- 
sumed with some certainty that neither Richard Cromwell, 



HRIDGET (;R()MWELL. 67 

even if he were not in exile, nor Henry had he not become a 
chiux'hman, would have been at one Avith them ; for Fleet- 
wood and Co. had precipitated the downfall of their house. 
The subscribers' names to the folio edition of Dr. Owen's 
works may supply other suggestions. 

The almost total silence which shrouds the domestic life of 
Fleetwood subsequent to the Eestoration contrasts strangely 
with the tumidtuous tide of events whose every crest had 
carried his name dming the two previous years. Dr. Watts 
tells us that his name was held in honour among the churches. 
This we can easily believe; but the Doctor would have 
pleased us better by placing on record some vestiges of. his 
conversations or his correspondence dming the period m 
question; for how frequently, we imagine, must the old 
Covenanter's moralisings on the " voice " of Providence have 
reverted to the past, and received amplification from his 
narratives of the great Protector's spiritual warfare, a theme 
on which he could dwell with a warmth and a sympathy 
which few to the same extent could either appreciate or 

share. 

There was one respect in which he could look back on the 
late uptirrnings without any remorse. The part which ho had 
himself borne in them was marked tliroughout by perfect dis- 
interestedness. Expressing once to Henry his unwillingness 
to aid out of the public pm-se a distant relative whom he calls 
" poor Cromwell," he frankly adds,— "You in part know my 
estate and condition. I cannot make an advantage of my 
public employments as many have [done] or others suppose I 
do. Neither am I solicitous about this business. 1 have suf- 
ficient cause from experience to trust the Lord with children 
whom I shall leave behind me. His blessing with a little is 
great riches " Tliurloe. YII. 595. 

Not the least interesting portion of this society consisted of 
the three daughters of Henry Ireton mentioned above, who 
appear to have been greatly attached to their father-in-law, 
and to have married from his house with his officially ex- 
pressed approval. The dates of their marriages shew that 
they must all have continued resident at Stoke Newington 
many years after their father-in-law's union with Lady 
Haitopp. Thus, Jane was married to Richard Lloyd in 1668, 
—Bridget to Thomas Bendysh in 1669,— Ehzabeth to Thomas 
Polhilllibout the year 1674. A reference to two of the said 
marriages, as preserved in the Faculty-Office, may here be 
fitly introduced as illustrative of domestic life at Stoke_ New- 
ington and as serving also in the adjustment of a question_ to 
bo^ubsequently discussed. The marriage allegation ha\ing 



f)(S THE HOUSE OF f:R01NnvELT-. 

reforence to Jane is in substance as follows. — Hichard Lloyd 
of St. James'. Diilce's Place, London, widower, aged about 
thirty, was to marry Jane Ireton of Newington Middx. spins- 
ter, aged about twenty, whose parents were dead, with the 
consent of her father-in-law Charles Fleetwood Esq. They 
were to marry at Cheshunt, Herts, St. James' Duke's Place, 
or Newington aforesaid. The other allegation referring to 
Bridget testifies that Thomas Bendysh of Grays Inn, gent, 
aged about t'^'enty four, was to marry Bridget Ireton, spinster, 
aged about nineteen, whose parents were dead, and she living 
with and at tlie disposal of her father-in-law Charles Fleet- 
wood Esq. of Stoke Newington, whose consent was alleged. 
They were to marry either at Stoke Newington or at St. 
Leonard's Shoreditch. Recited in Notes and Queries, hy Co- 
lonel Joseph Lemuel Chester. During the year before Fleet- 
wood's death, his daughters-in-law having long left him, it 
looks as though his household must have been brightened by 
the presence of that chivah'ous lady Plannah Hewling the wife 
of Major Henry Cromwell, for here occurred in 1691 the birth 
of lier daughter Mary. Unseated from their home at Spinney 
Abbey, the family were leading an unsettled life in the neigh- 
bourhood of London, the Major engaged in his military 
duties, and Hannah seeking here and there the home which is 
found among kindred hearts. Did Bridget Bendysh ever 
tra^'el all the way from Yarmouth to greet her kinswoman 
under the old roof-tree, and mingle their tears once more over 
the fate of Benjamin and William Hewling ? no one knows. 



Abstract of the will of General Fleetirood, recorded in the 
Prerogative Court of Canterbury. 10 January 1690. 

I, Charles Fleetwood of Stoke Newington in the County 
of Middlesex, Esq. being through the mercy of the Lord in 
health and memory, do make &e. First, I commend my 
soul and spirit into the hands of ti\j gracious Grod and father 
through our Lord Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit enabling 
me to lay hold upon the imputed righteousness of Christ for 
my justification, and in virtue of that righteousness do I hope 
to stand at the great day of the Lord. My body to be bui'ied 
in the same grave or as near as may be to my last dear wife. 
Debts, wages, &c. to be paid within one year of death. To 
my daughter the Lady Elizabeth Hartopp £100 as a last ex- 
pression of my thankfulness for the constant dear love and 
duty she hatli ah\'ays manifested unto me. I give unto dear 
daughter Carter £100. To my cousin Mary Waterson £20 



FLEKTWOO]) l\ RETIHKMENT, 69 

over aud aLove the £20 wliich my last dear wife owed her hy 
bond which I now direct my executor to pay. To Anne Pace 
£10 for myself aud £10 more which my last wife gave her. 
[two devises left blank, follow] . I give to the poor distressed 
people of God £200 such as my executor with two of my 
trustees hereafter named (Sir John Hartopp to be one) shall 
think fit objects of charity. £10 to be paid to the poor of 
that society with whom I have had Chi-istian communion in 
the Gospel, — as also £G to my antient friend James Berry Esq. 
and £3 to Mr. Howard minister of the Gospel and to Mr. 
Thomas Taylor minister of the Gospel at Cambridge and Mr. 
Felloe minister of the Gospel at Sudbury, and £2 to any 
others that I shall name in a paper behind me. I give and 
devise to Sir John Hartopp bart., Samuel Desborrow doctor 
of physic. Captain John Nicholas, and Nathaniel Gould 
merchant their heirs and assigns all my manor or lordship of 
Burrough alias Burrough-Castle, Co. Suffolk, in trust to pay 
legacies &c. and afterwards to convey the same to my son and 
heir Smyth Fleetwood and his heirs for ever. To each of my 
said trustees £5 for mourning. And whereas there is a debt 
due to me from my son Bendy sh, my will is that my executor 
shall not demand the said debt till God shall in his providence 
make a comfortable provision for his wife and children. My 
son Smyth Fleetwood to be sole executor — Signed 10 January 
1690 — in presence of Edward Terry, Mary Waterson, John 
Wealshdale. Proved by Smyth Fleetwood in P. C. C. 2 
November 1692. Registered ^^ Froie'' 201. Notes and Queries. 
4 Mai/, 1872. 

In accordance with the above will, General Fleetwood was 
buried in his wife's tomb in Bunhill Fields. The original 
inscription, which has long been worn away, stated that 
Charles Fleetwood Esq. died 1692 aged 74, and Dame Mary 
Hartopp his wife in 1684. In place of this, the names 
" Lieut. General Charles Fleetwood " aud " Dame Mary 
Hartopp " have been strongly re-cut on the side of the 
monmnent ; — as also the following words, — " Discovered 
seven feet beneath the surface and restored by the Corpora- 
tion of London, 1869." For an account of the other Crom- 
well monuments in this cemetery, see page 87 ; and for their 
inscriptions at large, considt Mark Noble's Protectorate. 

Three or four years after the veteran's departure, Isaac 
Watts comes upon the scene. In 1696, being then twenty 
two years of age, he was engaged by Sir John Hartopp to 
act as tutor to his only surviving son John (the fourth and 
last baronet,) which first visit to Stoke Ne^sdngton lasted five 
years. Reviewing it in after life, he thanks Heaven for the 



70 THK HOUSE OF (niOMWKLl.. 

pleasure and improvement tlien experienced ; having himself 
derived so mncli instruction where he was called to he an 
instructor. Upon which passage Robert Southey most truly 
comments, — " If he [Watts] had not, as may all but literally 
be said, sucked in the principle of Dissent at his mother's 
breast, this was a household in which of all others he would 
be most likely to imbibe it." 

But there was another part of Watts's creed which could 
not fail to be adjusted to a correct standard by his long asso- 
ciation with this select circle ; for to the five years spent under 
Sir John Hartopp's roof we must add the five and thirty 
during which he was the guest of their neighbour Lady 
Abney. This article of his belief, touching which so many 
went astray, was a true and loving estimate of the character 
of the Protector. Turning to his Lyric Poems, we see at once 
that his most cherished friendships embraced the descendants 
and adherents of Oliver ; and we also knoAV that his own 
family liistory sustained the generous homage. While Mrs. 
Bendj^sh during an occasional visit from Yarmouth to the 
paternal home may be imagined as uttering some of her 
accustomed rhapsodies in praise of her incomparable grand- 
father, Isaac Watts could tell them how his own grandfather 
had sailed in Admiral Blake's fleet ; and how, when the ship 
in which he fought blew up in action with the Dutch, he and 
his mates were shot towards heaven by the volcanic discharge, 
and ceased not to ascend till they reached the stars. This 
grandfather of Watts was a man not to be soon forgotten. 
In time of peace he had exhibited taste not only as a di-aughts- 
man but as a violinist. In the East Indies he once encoun- 
tered a tiger, and when the animal pursued him into a river, 
contrived to destroy him by holding him under water. The 
widow whom he left behind afterwards became the 
spiritual nurse of her little grandchild Isaac, and her narra- 
tives no doubt fostered that bellicose phraseology which ever 
and anon crops out in his poems. Soon after the restoration 
of royalism, Isaac Watts's own father who kept a school at 
Southampton was clapped into gaol as a nonconformist. 
Isaac was then an infant ; and his motlier, we are told, was 
accustomed to come on sunny days and sit on a stone near 
the cell of her husband, there to niu'se her baby through the 
weary hours. Yes — Robert Southey is quite right in tracing 
Isaac Watts's polemics to the maternal fountain, 

Among his poetical works we discover several odes dedi- 
cated to members of the Fleetwood household ; that " Against 
tears" for instance, addressed to Mrs. Bendysh ; "The 
Indian Philosopher " to Henry Bendysh her son, on his 



])R. ISAAC WATTS. 



71 



marriage iu 1701. " The Life of Souls " is addressed to Dr. 
Thomas Gibson the Protector Richard's son in law. An 
answer to a libellous satire, being a defence of King William 
III, is dedicated to David Polhill ; Hortatory verses to the 
two brothers Charles and Smyth Fleetwood ; Two pieces, one 
in English, the other in I^atin, to his pupil Sir John Har- 
topp ; and lastly, two Panegyrics to John Howe the venera- 
ble surviving chaplain of the two Protectors ; the latter as 
follows. 

" Howe is a great but single name ; 
Amidst the crowd he stands alone, 
Stands yet, but with his starry pinions on, 
Drest for the flight, and ready to be gone. 

Eternal Ciod, command his stay ; 

Stpetch the dear months of his delay. 
Oh, we could wish his age were one immortal day. 

But when the flaming chariot's come. 
And shining guards to attend thy prophet home ; 

Amidst a thousand weeping eyes. 
Send an Elisha down, a soul of equal size, 
Or burn this worthless globe, and take us to the skies." 

In 1699 the lease of the Manor of Stoke Newington was 
sold by the Popham family of Littlecote in Wilts to Thomas 
Grunston a young man of fortune, who forthwith proceeded 
to erect a stately mansion at its southern limit facing Church 
Street ; but dying the next year, before the house was com- 
pleted, he left the estate to his sister Mary the second wife 
of Sir Thomas Abney (then Lord Mayor of London.) This 
premature death of (junston gave birth to a long elegiac poem 
or Epicedium by Dr. Isaac Watts, consisting of 430 lines, 
which he dedicated to Lady Abney and enrolled among his 
Lyrics. After Sir Thomas's death, tliis lady came to reside 
in the house, together with her family, of which Dr. Watts 
remained for so many years a member. Stimulated perhaps 
by the pictorial tastes of his maternal grandfather above 
mentioned, the Doctor once tried his hand at fom' allegorical 
figures representing Youth, Age, Mirth, and Grief, which 
long years after, remained in the front parlours as mementoes 
of his residence here. A swan painted by him was also 
shewn, which he had introduced, during the artist's absence 
as an improvement to a wall-pictm-e representing Actajon's 
Metamorphosis. Whether or not the ariist, on his return, 
deemed it an improvement, is not recorded ; but the swan 
was permitted to remain. In modern days the Abney 
grounds with their venerable cedars have obtained a new and 
modified form of lease by their conversion into the Abney- 



72 TlIK llolSK OF CKOMWl'.I.J,. 

l';uk-( Viiiclci')' ; and l)y. Wafts silll (loiiiiuaics ilio .sctaie in 
llu; form of a statue, which, notwitlistaiiding its cjclopoaii 
proportions, eonvoj's a not incorrect idea of tlie original 
nian. 

8toke NcNving'ton must not detain us any longer ; for the 
Fleetwood and llartopp alliances and the liistories of Sir 
Nathaniel Gould, Justice Cooke, Mrs. Ilurlock, and the rest 
of the race, do not properly fall within the Trotectoral 
annals. All tliis, togetluT with much more respecting other 
iUustrious residents thca'e, sucli as Daniel De Foe, Tliomas iJay, 
Howard the philanthropist, and Mrs. Barbauld, will be found 
duly set forth in William Anderson's History of the parish. 
As for Fleetwood-house itself, the old mansion wliero so many 
of the Crom\v(^ll kitli and kin went in and out two centm-ies 
ago, it was deniolished in 1872, at which time sevend visits 
were made to it by persons interested in its historj^ ; whose 
narratives may be read in the jyotca and Queries of that date, 
descriptive of its oak panelling, its picturesque staircases, its 
bhazon of arms, with otlier memoranda of the associatcnl 
families who successively inherited it. We must now travel 
back and recover the track left by Henry Ireton. 



Children of (he Frufcclors ddiKjIilcr Uridijrl hij Uvnrij 
1 ret oil. 

I. Henry, who married Katharine daughter of tlio lit. 
Hon. Henry l*owle. Speaker of the House of Commons in 
IGyi) and Master of the llolls. No issue. 

II. Eli/ahetii, born about 1047. A brief reference to 
her childhood occurs in a letter sent in 1(551 by 01iv(!r St. 
John " to his kijisman Oliver Cromwell " then connnanding 
in Ireland, — " Tell my cousin Ireton that his wife breeds 
Betty u]) in tlie Fopisli religion to worship images, and that 
[whicli] she now worships teaoheth her to frown." WJiat 
this playful sarcasm indicates, we can only conjecture. In 
1G74 she was married to Thomas Tolhill of Otford, Co. Kent, 
Esq. 

FnmUij of PolhiU. 

The issue of the marriage of Elizabeth Ireton and Mr. 
]'olliill (ionsisted of three sons,— 1. David, of whom pre- 
sently.— 2. Henry, who died in his father's life-time.— ;j. 
Charles, a Smyrna merchant, born 1G7(J, died s.p. 1755, 



DMSCICNDAX'l'S Ol'' i;KIl)(iK'l' (Ki )M \V Ml, I,. 78 

having luamod Martlia daug-liicr of Thomas »Strc'atl'i.'ild of 
Sevenoaks. 

David, of Cheapstoad in Kent, born in 1675, M.P. for tlio 
county, tlien for 15ramber, and finally for llochester, whicli 
city lie represented till he readied the age of 79. Tliis is the 
gentleman whom Daniel Do Foe memorialised as tJie leader 
of the Kentish Petitioners of 1701, a body of five delegates 
who in the reign of William III. presented a remonstrance 
to the Houses condemnatory of their subservience to the 
Court of Franco; the other names being Tliomas Colepepper, 
William Cole})eppor, William Hamilton, and Justinian 
Champneys, Escpiires. For this they were committed to tlie 
Gate-house and kept ])risoners for a week, but their retiu-n 
into Kent resembled the march of conquerors. Folhill -was 
mot at Blackheath by five hundred horsemen and escorted to 
his house at Otford ; the other four were met at llochester by 
nearly half the county, and from thence on to Maidstone 
where flowers Avere strewn in their path and all the cluu'ch- 
bells set a-ringing. A contemporary print is preserved in 
tlie Polhill family containing tlie portraits of the five patriots. 
Patriotism, among the commercial-protestant party of that 
hour, took the form of an ardent promotion of all King 
William's schemes at home or abroad ; and a valuable means 
to that end was the defence and exaltation of his personal 
cliaracter, a service whicli was lovingly rendered by Dr. 
Watts, Pjishop Burnet, Daniel Do Foe, and others. Tlius 
Watts breaks forth, when addressing liis friend — 

" Polhill, my blood boils high, my spirits flame ; 
Can your zeal slcei), or arc your passions tame ? 
Nor call revenge and darkness on the [slanderer's] name V 
Why smoke tlie skies not? why no thunders roll ? 
Nor kindling lightnings blast his guilty soulV 
Audacious wretch ! to stab a mouarch's fame, 
And fire his subjects with a rebel ilame." 

Mr. Polhill was thrice married, first, to >]li/,abet]i Trevor 
secondly to (iertrude sister of Thomas Hollis Duke of New- 
castle, and thirdly to Flizabeth daughter of Joliu Porrett of 
Shoreham ; the last became the mf)ther of four sons and one 
daughter. In these sons and daughters were united not only 
the blood of Oliver Cromwell and Henry Ireton, but also 
that of the patriot John Hampden, for Elizabeth Porrett's 
mother was the daughter of Sir John Trevor of Donbio-]i- 
shire, by Puth eldest daughter of John Ham^xlen. The 
names of those children were Charles, Thomas, Henry, John 
and Elizabeth, all of whom died unmarried except 



7i 



THK HOUSE OF CROMWELL. 



Charles, of Cheapstead and afterwards of Otford ; mar- 
ried, first. Try pliena- Penelope daughter of Sii' John Shelley 
of Mitchel-grove, Sussex, hart, and by her had one daughter 
Tryphena-Penelope who married Greorge Stafford, and had 
two sons, Charles and Thomas-Greorge. Mr. Polhill by his 
second wife Patience Haswell had seven children, G-eorge, his 
successor, — Charles, who died unmarried, — David, died in 
infancy, — Patience, unmarried, — a second David, unmarried, 
— Thomas- Alfred, lost in the South Seas from the Gi(ard/a)i, 
Capt. llion, — Francis, comptroller of the (Customs at Mont- 
serrat in the West Indies, died 1839. Mr. Polhill died in 
1805 and was succeeded by his eldest son, 

George, who married Mary daughter of Robert Porteus 
and grand-niece of Dr. Bielby Porteus, bishop of London, 
and died in 1839. Their children were, 1. Charles, who 
married Sarah Marshall, and had two daughters, Beatrice- 
Mary and Elizabeth-Mary, and died recently. — 2. Mary- 
Elizabeth-Cambell. — 3. Frederick Campbell, cm-ate of Hever, 
Sevenoaks. — -1. Greorge. — 5. Henry- Western- Onslow, who 
married Miss Frances Charlotte Streatfleld. The seat of the 
Polhills contains a valuable collection of the portraits of their 
illustrious ancestry, inclutling many full-lengths. 

III. Jane, second daughter of Bridget Cromwell and 
Henry Ireton, born 1647, married 1668 Pichard Lloyd of 
St. James', Duke's Place, Esq. widower, and had an only 
child Jane, wife in 1710 of Nicholas [or Henry] Morse Esq. 
Issue of this marriage were four sons, David, Henry, 
Nicholas, Daniel. There were also three daughters, Eliza- 
beth, Jane, and Anne ; of whom, the eldest married Mr. Oyle 
a physician, and became the mother of Elizabeth married to 
Samuel Codrington ; Jane the second daughter became Mrs. 
Burroughs ; and Anne the youngest daughter became Mrs. 
Roberts. The husbands of these three ladies are all pre- 
sumed to have belonged to Norfolk or Suffolk, but any tan- 
gible memorials of them seem to have perished with the 
exception of the possible identity of the second with Sir 
James Burrow, sometime President of the Royal Society, 
who in 1763, mider his then style of James Burrow Esq. of 
the Middle Temple, published ^^ Anecdotes and oh.serrafions 
relating to Oliver Cronucell" with a view to disprove the 
assertion of an Italian historian that Oliver had spent two 
years in the University of Padua. Mr. Bm-row received 
knighthood in 1773 and died in 1782, events which must 
have been well known to Mark Noble ; so that, though the 
suggested identity be untenable, Sir James's interest in the 
Cromwellian annals may still have arisen from some near 



DESCENDANTS OF 15RIDGET CROMAVELl,. tO 

connexion, perhaps that of brother in haw to Miss Jane Ireton 
aforesaid. The " Oliver Cromwell " who was undoubtedly 
at Padua in 1618 was the son of Sir Oliver Cromwell of 
Ilinchinbrook by the knight's second wife, " the widow of 
Sir Horatio Palavicini, a noble Grenoese residing at Baberham 
Park near Cambridge. It was this Italian connexion which 
induced Sir Oliver to send his son to Padua for his education. 
The large number of contemporary Oliver Cromwells has 
perplexed English writers ; much more might they mislead 
a foreigner ; there was 

Sir Oliver Cromwell of Hinchinbrook who died 1655, pot. 
93, uncle of the Protector. 

Oliver Cromwell, son of Sir Oliver, the young man who 
went to Padua. 

Oliver Cromwell, son of Sir Philip, the Major mentioned 
at page 10 of this work. 

Oliver Cromwell, son of the Earl of Ardglass. 
Oliver Cromwell, the Protector. 
Oliver Cromwell, his son. 

And possibly some others. Sir James Burrows' investiga- 
tions resulted in the conviction that Oliver the Protector 
never visited the Continent. 

Touching the four sons of Mr. Morse aforesaid, nothing 
seems recoverable unless we make an exception in favour of 
the third named, and regard him as the Nicholas Morse who 
was Covernor of Madras in the middle of the last century, 
and whose daughter Amelia married Henry Vansittart 
Covernor of Bengal and father of Nicholas the first Lord 
Bexley. It may suffice to add that the claim which the 
Vansittart family have long asserted touching their descent 
from the Protector through Henry Ireton and Nicholas Morse 
has every right to be accepted as legitimate ; the only ditH- 
culty in the way being that Mark Noble gives " Moore " 
instead of " Morse " as the name of Jane Lloyd's husband : 
that this is an error, hardly admits of a doubt, occasioned by 
the resemblance of the two words in manuscript. It is also 
to be noted that the lady who about the same time, viz. in 
1771 became the wife of the last Oliver Cromwell Esq. was 
named Mary Morse, indicative at least of friendly relations 
existing between families so named. 

Amelia Morse, the wife of Grovernor Henry Vansittart 
aforesaid, died in 1818, at her house on Blacklieath, aged 80. 
Her husband had long been dead, having perished at a com- 
paratively early age on his passage to India in the Aurora 
frigate. When the news of this calamity reached England, 
she resolutely refused to wear mourning, and continued for 



76 ^'111'. iloisi', oi' CKOMW i;i,i,. 

luiiiiy yoars to imrso Hk^ Lclicf th.'it lui was cast away on 
sonic d(?sort isLmd and would cvonlually return to his native 
country. As I'rosidont of the (Jouncil at Cahnitta Mr. Van- 
sittart had l)oen injuriously assailed hy another East India 
iJirector named .Scral'ton, which induced the contending 
parties to come to England and carry on a paper war whicih 
lasted some years. l3nt being at last reconciled, they and 
their respective friends re-omharked for India, and having 
touched at the Cape were never again heard of. The whole 
narrative is exhaustively treated in tlie third volume of 
J[i((jhe^' Lcffrrn. One of the lost crew of the Aurora wjis 
the purser William Falconer the author of the poem called 
*' The Shipirrevl-:' 

NiCH()i,As Vansittaiit, Baron Bexley, was the second son 
of ILeiuy Vansittavt the Governor of r)engal, and grandson 
of Arthur Yaiisitlart of Shotteshrook, hy Martha, dauglit(U'of 
Sir John Stonhouse of lladley, hart. Of i\m Von->Sittarts, 
deriving from the Duchy of Jidiers between the Ithine and 
the Maese, the first English settler was Peter Vansittai't, de- 
scribed as an eminent Liussia merchant, and fatlier to Arthiu\ 
Lord Bexley was horn in 1 760, four years before his father's 
death at sea. In 1784 he went to Christchnrch, Oxford, and 
in 1701 was called to the bar in Linciolns Inn ; but aspiring 
to diplomatic honours, he entered the House as Member for 
Hastings and in 1801 was entrusted with a special mission to 
Copenhagen. The Danes overawed by Napoleon refused at 
that tim(> to entertain an English ambassador ; and on re- 
turning home Mr. Vansittart became joint (Secretary of the 
Treasury, which office he held till the Addington ministry 
resigned in 1804. Under Lord Liverpool he became Cliancellor 
of the Exchequor in 1812 and held the post for twcaity-one 
years. He was sujiposed to be well fitted for that department 
by the matluimaticnl turn of his mind, l)ut it re(piirod some- 
tliing more to rend(!r the subject eitlu^r lucid or attractive to 
his auditors. In 182''i he obtained his peerage and a seat in 
the Cabinet, and took little share afterwards in public alfairs ; 
dying in 1851 at the age of 85, at his beautiful residence of 
Footseray near Bexley in Kent. He married in 1806 the 
Hon. Katharine-Isabella Eden, second daughter of William 
first Lord Auckland, but by her, who died four years after- 
wards, he left no issue ; wh(jreu])on the barony of Bexley be- 
came extinct and a pension of i;o,000 lapsed to the Crown. 

IV. BiunGKT, third daughter of Bridget Cromwell and 
Henry Ireton, born about the year 1649. The biography of 
this lady, as heretofore given, simply consists of three diiferent 
sketches supplied respectively by iSamuel Sa}^ a Dissenting 



DKSCKNDAM'l'S OF liUIDG]''/!' CKOM WKLI,. 77 

minister, by Dr. J. IJrookc, and 1)}' licr icl-ition Mr. Howling 
Liison. In tlio following- version an attcm])! lias l)oon made 
to impart j>'rcator <H)mpletenoss and rotundil.y to tlio afl'air hy 
l)l('nding- thoso tliroo narratives, and occasionally (to a very 
slight extent) modifying the language. Bridget, togetlier 
witli one or two other of the family, appears to have been left 
under the care of tlieir grandmotlicr tlie Protectrciss, wlion 
tlieir own mother went to Irehxnd witli lier second husl)and 
Fleetwood in l(i;V2. Her guardians very early discerned in 
tlie cliild's cliaracter the seeds of futm-o greatness, and tlie 
little girl on lior part was not long in imbibing fortiiat of lior 
grandfather a veneration which througli a long life fell little 
sliort of idolatry. To his early lessons she was in the habit 
of attributing whatever good qualiti(>s she possessed. " Ali, 
tliat was wliat I learned from my grandfather," she wouhl 
say in after years on tlio imputation of any good maxim or 
practice to lierself. She liad so long looked at life from his 
staiidpoint, had sympathized so lovingly hi liis struggles and 
asj)irations, and in cliildhood had been honoured with so mucli 
of Jiis confidence, that her mind became a more perfect mirror 
of his own than jjcrliaps any other of his descendants was 
capable of i)resenting. True, slio was a woman ; yet among 
all his warlike progeny tlie Protector lias never been so 
worthily represented as by the tender hearted, heroic, and self- 
forgetful Bridget Benclysh. One of the lessons which he 
taught her was the sanctity of any secret with which he might 
entrust lier. When only six years of age she had sat betwe(,'n 
his knees during the discussion of State affairs among his 
privy council, and on one of the parties objecting to lier pre- 
sence, he would curtly I'emark, "There is nothing I would 
discuss with any one of you which I would not equally con- 
fide to that child." Nor was his confidence niis])laced ; he 
had put it to the test in the following manner, — first imparting 
a secret which she Avas to divulge to no person whatsoever, 
and then directing her mother and grandmother to attempt its 
extraction by coaxing, tlircatenings, and e\-on severe punish- 
ments; against all which assaults little Ijiddy would stand 
out with inflexible integrity, acknowledging the duty whitili 
she owed to her mother, but at the same time asserting the 
still more imperious fealty whi(;h her grandfather had chal- 
lenged. That grandfather's d(!atli occurred before she was 
ten years of age ; that of her mother followed four years 
later ; so that she must have had an uiK^uiet time of it before 
she settled down with her sisters beneath the roof of their 
father-in-law Fleetwood in the non(;onforming atmospliere of 
Stoke Newington. Here she passed four or five yeai-s of her 



78 THE HOUSE OF (JROMWELL. 

virgin life, as already shewn, till her marriage with Tliomas 
Beudysh of Grays Inn and of Southtown, Yarmoutli, Esq. 
son of Sir Thomas Bendysh who had served as Ambassador 
to Turkey both from Charles I and from the Protector Oliver. 
It would be highly interesting, were the materials extant, to 
trace the early married life of this excellent lady, and lier in- 
dividual share in those ecclesiastical tragedies which con- 
tributed to build up her stately character. Heartbreaking and 
mortifying we know they must have been to one who had none 
of the pliant policy which enabled so many of her kinsfolk to 
acquiesce in the national recoil from fortitude back to slavery. 
Dr. Isaac Watts' s Ode addressed to her " Against tears " 
would give us to understand that she was subject to much de- 
pression of spirit ; yet, if she has been rightly judged in the 
present memoir, it could hardly be for herself that Mrs. Ben- 
dysh was given to weeping. One would rather be disposed 
to apply to her case the words of William Cowper. 

" True piety is cheerful as the day ; 

Will weep indeed and heave a pitying groan 
For other's woes, but smiles upon her own." 

Watts's Ode is dated 1699, the year in which he was 
only 25, while Mrs. Bendysh must have been double that 
age. We may conclude therefore that while he gave her 
full credit for nobility of soul, his own brief experience of 
life's trials hardly qualified him to sound the depth of sor- 
rows such as hers. She knew and felt, as few besides her 
did, from what bright hopes the better part of the nation 
had fallen, how her grandfather's struggles and aspirations 
for the Protestant ascendancy abroad had been quenched in 
the ignominious triumph of vice at home ; and how, in 
numerous cases that came home to the beloved members of 
her family, the homage of the crowd had been exchanged for 
an undignified struggle for existence. Shortly too before 
Watts came into contact with her, had occurred the Western 
tragedies connected with the Duke of Monmouth's rising. 
This whole affair must have been a very torture to her sensi- 
bilities ; and when we recall the fate of her kinsmen the 
Hewlings, and fancy her co-operating with Mrs. Henry 
Cromwell in their behalf, for it would be imjjossible for 
Mrs. Bendysh to sit still at such a crisis, who can Avonder 
that her heart had bled, or that the wounds which were then 
opened, as old Kyffln said to the King, could close only in 
death ? With Watts, on the other hand, the brightening 
prospects of Protestantism under the fostering hand of Wil- 



DESCENDANTS OF 15RIDGET CiROMWELL. 79 

Ham of Orange served very much to obliterate the past, 
while the respected names with which Dissent had now come 
to be gilded, proclaimed a happy outcome from obsolete 
disaster which rather challenged a note of perennial jubila- 
tion. 

Samuel Say the earliest of Mrs. Bendysh's biographers had 
many opportunities of knowing her intimately, for he had 
not only been pastor of a church in the neighbouring town of 
Ipswich, but he married a relative of Mr. Carter of Yar- 
mouth the husband of Mary Fleetwood ; moreover he had 
been a fellow-student with Dr. Watts. Here is his descrip- 
tion of her personal appearance — 

" As Mrs. Bendysh in the features of her face exactly re- 
sembled the best picture of Oliver which I have ever seen 
and which is now at Rosehall in the possession of Sir Kobert 
Rich, so she seems also as exactly to resemble him in the cast 
of her mind, — a person of great presence and majesty, heroic 
com'age and indefatigable industry ; and with something in 
her countenance and manner that at once attracts and com- 
mands respect the moment she appears in company ; — accus- 
tomed to tui'n her hands to the meanest offices and even 
drudgeries of life ; — among her workmen from the earliest 
morning to the decline of day, in a habit and aj^pearance be- 
neath the meanest of them, and suitable neither to her 
character nor to her sex. And then immediately after 
having eaten and drunk almost to excess of whatever is be- 
fore her without choice or distinction, to throw herself down 
upon the next couch or bed that offers in the profoundest 
sleep, to rise from it with new life and vigour, to dress her- 
self in all the riches and grandeur of appearance that her 
present circumstances or the remains of better times will 
allow her, and about the close of evening to ride in her chaise 
or on her pad to a neighbouring port [Yarmouth] and there 
shine in conversation and receive the place of precedence in 
all company as a lady who once expected to have been at 
this time one of the first persons in Europe ; to make innu- 
merable visits of ceremony, business, or charity, and dispatch 
the greatest affairs with the utmost ease and address ; — 
appearing everywhere as the common friend advocate and 
patroness of the poor and miserable in any kind, in whose 
cause she would receive no denial from the great and rich ; 
rather demanding than requesting them to perform their 
duty ; — and who is generally received and regarded by those 
who knew her best as a person of great sincerity, piety, gene- 
rosity, and even profusion of charity." 

Mr. Say then proceeds to qualify this character by the 



80 THE HOUSE OF OKOMWEf,!,. 

story of lior inconsistencies to Avliich we shall liave to retnrn ; 
but her personal portraiture must first be completed. 
" Such," says he, " was this g-rancldaug-hter of Oliver, who 
inherited more of his constitution of body and complexion of 
mind than any other of his descendants or relations with 
whom I have happened to be acquainted ; and I have had 
some acquaintance with many other of his grandchildren, 
and have seen his son Eichard, and Eichard's son Oliver who 
had something indeed of the spirit of his grandfather ; but 
all his other distinguishing qualifications seemed vastly in- 
ferior to the lady whose character I have here represented." 

Dr. J. Brooke of Norv/ich another of her biographers, 
whose testimony is of a later date, remarks, — " There was 
something in her person when she was dressed and in com- 
pany that could not fail of attracting at once the notice and 
respect of any strangers that entered the room wherever she 
was, though the companj^ were ever so numerous, and though 
many of them might be more splendid in their appearance. 
Splendid indeed she never was ; her highest dress being a 
plain silk, but it was usually of the richest sort, though, as 
far as I can remember, of what is called a quaker's colour ; 
and she wore besides a kind of black silk hood or scarf that I 
rerely if ever observed to be worn by ladies of her time ; and 
though hoops were in fashion long before her death, nothing 
I suppose could have induced her to wear one. I can so far 
recollect her countenance as to confirm what is observed by 
Mr. Say of her likeness to the best pictures of Oliver ; and 
she no less resembled him in the qualities of enterprise, reso- 
lution, corn-age, and enthusiasm " " She must cer- 
tainly have had an engaging and entertaining tm-n of con- 
versation, or she could not have fixed the attention of myself 
when a bo}^ twelve or fourteen, and of another still younger 
and as volatile [Hewling Luson] and have made us often 
happy in listening to her discom'se, whether it concerned the 
history of her herself and her own times, or whether it con- 
sisted of advice and instruction to us, or was a mixture of 
both. It is impossible to say what figure she might not have 
made in the world had she been placed in an elevated station 
and been honom-ed with the confidence of a prince or min- 
ister ; and I believe there is no station to which her spirit 
woidd have been unequal. In the circumstances therefore 
in which she was left, with an income of I think two or 
three huncli-ed a year, it was natural that sometimes as far 
and sometimes beyond what her fortune would admit, she 
engaged in projects of diiferent kinds, by which I have been 
told she was much oftener a loser than a gainer. One into 



MRS,, BP^NDYSH. SI 

which she entered was the grazing of cattle. Her goin"- to 
fairs to buy them, in the only eqiii^mge I remember her to 
have had, a one-horse chaise, afforded exercise at once for 
her courage and enthusiasm. Travelling in the night was to 
her the same as in the day, and in the worst roads and wea- 
ther as in the best. Nor could she encounter any dan<Ters 
in which it would not be too little to say slie was perfectly 
fearless ; it comes nearer to her character to say, which she 
woidd most enjoy. I have heard her say that when in the 
dai-kest night, on a wide open heath, with the roads of which 
she was quite unacquainted, she has had to encounter the 
most dreadful thunder-storm, she has then been happy, has sung 
this or that psalm, and doubted not that angels surrounded 
her chaise and protected her." 

The narrative of Mr. Hewling Luson the third of her 
biographers, who like Dr. Brooke knew her only in advanced 
life, presents us with a similar picture. Luson' s mother was 
a younger sister of Hannah Hewling [Mrs. Henry Crom- 
well], and the sjanpathy which Mrs. Bendysh felt for the fate 
of her brothers fully accounts for the fi-equency of her visits 
to the elder Mr. Luson' s house. " I was young," snys Hew- 
ling Luson, " not more than sixteen when Mrs. Bendysh 
died, yet she came so often to my father's house that I 
remember her person, her dress, her manner, and her con- 
versation, which were all strikingly peculiar, with great 
precision ; and I have heard much more of her than I have 
seen. She was certainly, both \vithout and within, in her 
person and in her spirit, exactly like her grandfather the 
Protector. Her featm-es, the turn of her face, and the ex- 
pression of her countenance all agree very exactly with the 
excellent pictui-es I have seen of the Protector in the Crom- 
well family. And whoever looks upon the print prefixed to 
the octavo Life of Cromwell, said to be published by the late 
Bishop Gibson about the year 1725, which exactly agrees 
with these pictures, will have a clear idea of ]\ii-s. Bendysh's 
person, if their imaginations can add a female di-ess, a few 
years in age, and a very little softening of the featm-es. I 
refer to that print because the fine engraving of Cromwell 
in the Houbraken Collection bears very little resemblance to 
the pictures in the Cromwell family and no resemblance at 
all to Mrs. Bendysh" " She had strong and mascu- 
line sense, a free and spirited elocution, much knowledge of 
the world, great dignity in her manner, and a most engaging 
address. The place of her residence was called the Salt- 
Pans [near Yarmouth] . In this place which is quite open to 
the road, I liave often scon her in the morning, stumping 

G 



82 THE HOUSE OF C:ROM\VKJ.l-L. 

about with an old straw hat on her head, her hair about her 
ears, without stays, and when it was cold an old blanket 
about her shoulders and a staff in her hands, — in a word, 
exactly accoutred to mount the stage as a witch in Macbeth. 
Yet if at such a time she were accosted by any person of rank 
or breeding, the dignity of her manner and politeness of 
style which nothing could efface would instantly break 
through the veil of debasement which concealed her native 
grandeur ; and a stranger to her customs might become 
astonislied to find himself addressed by a princess while he 
was looking at a mumper. Mrs. Bendysh resembled the 
Protector in nothing more than in that restless unal)ated 
activity of spirit which, by the coincidence of a thousand 
favom^able circumstances, conducted him to the summit 
of power and of fame, but entangled her, generally 
unfavoiu-ed by success, in a thousand embarrasments and dis- 
graces. Yet she never fainted nor was weary. One prospect 
lost, another still she gained. And the enthusiasm of lier 
faith kept pace with, or to speak more truly, far outran the 
activity of her mind." .... " She had one constant never 
failing resource against the vexation of disap2)ointments ; for, 
as she determined at all events to serve the Lord with glad- 
ness, her way was to rejoice at every thing as it arrived. If she 
succeeded, she was thankful for that ; and if she suffered ad- 
versity which ^^^as generally her lot, she was vastly more 
thankful for that ; and she so managed that her spiritual joys 
always encreased with her outward sufferings." ... " Mrs. 
Bendysh's religion was in the highest strain of Calvinistic 
enthusiasm, and Dr. Owen in his writings was her spiritual 
guide. She no more doubted the validity of her election to 
the Kingdom of Heaven than Squire Wilkes doubts the 
validity of his for the county of Middlesex. But her enthu- 
siasm never carried her to greater lengths of extravagance 
than in the justification of her Grrandfather, of whose memory 
she was passionately fond. It however unfortunately hap- 
pened that her fancy led her to defend him exactly in that 
part of his character which was least defensible. She valued 
him no doubt very highly as a Greneral and politician, but she 
had got it fixed in her head that this kind of fame was vain 
and worthless when compared with the greater glory of his 
saintship." .... " Now it could not but happen that for 
five hundred who might be prevailed with to receive Oliver as 
a great Greneral, not five could be found who woidd admit 
him to be a great Saint ; and this constant kicking against 
Oliver's saintsliip wrought the good lady sore travail. On 
such occasions her friends gave way to her whims or laughed 



MKS. BEXDYSH. 83 

them off ; l)ut when lier faith in Oliver was gravely contested 
by strangers, great and fearful was her^ wrath." 
" As the whole of Mrs. Beudysh's personal economy was not 
of the common form, her hours of visiting went generally out 
of the common season. She would very frequently come and 
visit at my father's at nine or ten at night, and sometimes 
later if the doors were not shut up ; and on such visits she 
generally staid till about one in the morning. Such late visits 
in those sober times were considered by her friends as highly 
inconvenient, yet nobody complained of them to her. The 
respect she universally commanded gave her a license in this 
as in many other irregularities. She would on her visits drink 
wine in great plenty, and the wine used to put her tongue 
into brisk motion, though I do not remember that she was 
ever disgracefully exposed by it. There was an old mare 
which had been the faithful companion of Mrs. Beudysh's 
adventures during many years. The old mare and her ma- 
noeuvres were as well known at Yarmouth as the old lady. 
On this mare she was generally mounted, but towards the en i 
of her life the mare was prevailed with to draw a chaise in 
which Mrs. Bendysh often seated herself. She would never 
suffer a servant to attend her in these night visits. Grod, she 
said, was her guard, and she would have no other. Her dress 
on these visits, though it was in a taste of her own, was always 
grave and handsome. At about one in the morning, for she 
seldom finished her round of visits sooner, she used to put her- 
self on the top of the mare or into the chaise and set off on 
her return. When the mare began to move, Mrs. Bendysh 
began to sing a psalm or one of Watts' s hj^mns in a very loud 
but not a very harmonious key. This I have often heard; and 
thus the two old souls, the mare and her mistress, one gently 
trotting and the other loudly singing, jogged on the length of 
a short mile from Yarmouth, which brought them home." 
[Another hero, besides Mrs. Bendysh, was " waking the night- 
owl with a catch" from the same book of songs. Colonel 
Gardiner in a letter to Dr. Doddridge says, " Well am I ac- 
quainted with Watts's works, especially with his Psalms, 
Hymns, and Lyrics. How often by singing some of them by 
myself on horseback and elsewhere has the evil spirit been 
made to flee away."] 

" This extraordinary woman," says Dr. Brooke, " wanted 
only to have acted in a superior sphere to be ranked by his- 
torians among the most admirable heroines. Had she been 
in the situation of a Zenobia, she would have supported her 
empire and defended her capital with equal skill and resolu- 
tion ; but she would never have lived to decorate the triumph 



84 TllK HOLISE (JF ('K()M\VKJ,J,. 

of an Aurclian, nor liavo given np a Secretary of the fidelity 
and abilities of Longinns to save herself. If she had been 
in the sitnation of Qneen Elizabeth, she wonld without 
scrnple have cnt off the heads of twenty Marj^s who by surviv- 
ing her might overturn the happ}^ establishment she had formed. 
She would as gloriously have defended her kingdom against 
a Spanish Armada or any hostile force whatever, and have 
rather inwardly triumphed than been intimidated at the most 
formidable preparations against her." " She had as much of 
Cromwell's com^age," says Luson, " as a female constitutio]i 
could receive, which was often expressed with more ardour 
than the rules of female decorum could excuse " .... 
" She lived through what the Dissenters but too justly called 
the troublesome times, when the penal laws against conven- 
ticles were strained to their utmost rigour. The preaching of 
this sect was then held in the closest concealment, and 
the preachers went in momentary danger of being dragged 
out by spies and informers to heavy fines and severe impri- 
sonment. With these spies and informers she maintained a 
perpetual war. This kind of bustle was in all respects in the 
true taste of her spirit. I have heard many stories of her 
dealings with these imgracious people. Sometimes she cir- 
cumvented and outwitted them, and sometimes she bullied 
them ; and the event generally was that she got the poor 
parson out of their clutches. Upon these occasions and upon 
all others when they could express their attachment to her, 
Mrs. Bendj'sh was sure of the common people. She was, as 
she deserved to be, very dear to them. When she had money 
she gave it freely to such as wanted ; and when she had none, 
which was pretty often the case, they were siu'e of receiving- 
civility and commiseration. She practised an exalted 
humanity. If in the meanest sick-room she found the sufferer 
insufficiently attended, she turned attendant herself, 
and would sit hours in the poorest chamber to administer 
support or consolation to the afflicted. In this noble em})loy- 
ment she passed much of her time." It is reported of her 
that on the occasion of what was called the Ilye-house plot 
she rescued a relative from imprisonment for high-treason by 
a bold and well concerted stratagem, though perfectly sen- 
sible of the vindictive spirit of the King and of the Duke of 
York, and that her own life would have paid the penalty of 
his escape, had she been detected. She was also in the secret 
of the Eevolution of 1688, and would go into shops in dif- 
ferent parts of the town under pretence of cheapening silks 
or other goods, and on coming out to her coach take occasion 
to drop bundles of papers to prepare the minds of the people 



MKS. HENDYSH. 85 

for that liappy event ; for she miglit safely be trusted with 
any secret were it ever so important." After the accession 
of AViUiam and Mary, she was presented to the Uueen by 
Archbishop Tillotson with a view to the settlement of a pen- 
sion, to enable her to support in some creditable measure the 
dignity which she had tasted in early days ; but the speedily 
succeeding death of both prelate and Uueen defeated that 
design. 

As a set-off against the almost faultless character here 
portraj^ed, Mr. Say brings against her the unaccountable 
charge of disregard for truth, or something very like it ; with 
a few other drawbacks ; — let us see what they are worth. 
Grranting her possessed of all the virtues above recorded, 
" and possessed of them," he admits, " in a degree beyond 
the ordinary rate, Mrs. Bendysh is a person, I am almovst 
tempted to say, of no truth, justice, or common honesty ; who 
never broke her promise in her life, and yet on whose word 
no man can prudently depend, nor safely report the least cir- 
cumstance after her. Of great and most fervent devotion 
towards Grod and love to her fellow-creatures and fellow- 
christains ; and yet there is scarce an instance of impiety or 
cruelty of which perhaps she is not capable. Fawning, sus- 
picious, mistrustful, and jealous without end of all her 
servants and even of her friends ; at the same time that she 
is ready to do them all the service that lies in her power. 
Affecting all mankind generally, not according to the service 
they are able to do her, but according to the service their 
necessities and miseries demand from her ; to the relieving of 
which neither the wickedness of their characters nor the in- 
juries they may have done to herself in particular, are the 
least exception, but rather a peculiar recommendation. Such 
are the extravagances that have long appeared to me in the 
character of this lady, whose frienclship and resentment I 
have felt by turns for a coiu'se of many years acquaintance 
and intimacy." 

Does not this last sentence awaken the suspicion that Mr. 
Say was still smarting under the recollection of some of her 
rebukes ? But there is one more trait to be noticed. On all 
occasions of doubt and difficulty she adopted her grandfather's 
plan of seeking guidance by praj'er. In Mr. Say's view this 
was a process by which " the vapours were raised, and the animal 
spirits wrought up to a peculiar ferment." It followed that 
projects undertaken in this frame of mind, might, and often 
did, appear very quixotic to her prudential friend ; but in the 
spirit of a phrase which was evidently a favourite with her, 
" She would trust a Friend who iv^vvr deceived lier." Mr 



86 THE HOUSE OF CROMWELI.. 

Say intimates that tliis excellent maxim was sometimes 
utilized to the evasion of a prompt discharge of her debts. 
" This was the very answer she made me," says he, " when 
upon her receiving a considerable legacy at the death of a 
noble relation [her aunt Lady Mary Fauconberg] I m^ged 
her to suspend her usual acts of piety generosity and charity 
upon such occasions, till she had been just to the demands of 
a poor woman, and had heard the cries of a family too long 
kept out of their money ; for how, said I, if you should die 
and leave such a debt undischarged ? She assured me she 
would never die in any one's debt. But how can you be sm-e 
of that, while you are for ever in debt, and have so many 
other occasions for your money than discharging your debts, 
and are resolved to have so many as long as you live ? Her 
answer was as before mentioned." To this, Mr. Say con- 
descends to append a postcrijjt in the following words — 
" Added after her death. And the event justified her conduct, 
if anything could justify a conduct which reason and revela- 
tion must condemn." 

AVith all due thankfulness for Mr. Say's graphic touches, 
it remains doubtful whether he was quite up to his subject. 
The scrupulosities which Mrs. Bendysh's serene fortitude 
over-rode, might have been virtues to himself ; the neglect 
of them in her own case can neither be attributed to laxity 
of principle nor be permitted to obscui'e the essentially Chris- 
tian attribute of courage. 

Of the anecdotes illustrative of her admiration for her 
grandfather, one only wears any credible aspect ; and even 
this seems overcharged, as if to furnish evidence of Lady 
Fauconberg's reputed alienation. In a violent fever, says 
Dr. Brooke, when she was thought past recovery and insen- 
sible to all around her, her aunt Lady Fauconberg and other 
company being in the room, and her ladyship giving too 
much way to things said in dishonour of his memory by 
some present, Mrs. Bendysh to their surprize raised herself 
up, and with great animation expressed lier astonishment 
that a daughter of the greatest and best man that ever lived 
should be so degenerate as not only to hear with patience his 
memory defamed but to seem herself to assent to it. [The 
above history of Mrs. Bendysh with many more details may 
be read in the second volume of Hughes' Letters.~\ 

Mrs. Bendysh's husband had died in 1707 and was bmied 
in St. Nicholas Church, Yarmouth, where she erected a 
monument to his memory. She smwived him twenty-two 
years, dying in 1729 at the age of eighty, having had two 
sons and one daughter, viz. 



FAMILY OF }5P:HNKKS'. ,S7 

1. Ttiomas, whose first wife was tlie mother of his only- 
son, Ireton, a yonng man of great promise whose early death 
was much lamented. His second wife was Katharine Smith 
of Colskirk near Fakenham, a lady of property ; but extrava- 
gant habits darkened their remaining history. The fate of 
this family was no doubt one of the sorrows of old Mrs. 
Bendysh. 

2. Bridget, lived and died at the paternal seat of South- 
town. 

3. Henry, of Bedford E-ow, London, married Martha 
Shute sister of Viscount Barrington, and had, — 1. Henry, of 
Chingford and of the Salt-pans at Southdown, died unmar- 
ried in 1758, when the name of Bendysh became extinct in 
this branch of the family. — 2, Mary, married to AVilliam 
Berners, of whom presently. — 3. Elizabeth, mar. 1756 to 
John Hagar of Waresley-park, son of Admiral Hagar. 



Faniilij of Berners. 

Mary Bendysh and "William Berners both died in 1783. 
Their sm'vdving chilcben were, — 1. Charles of whom pre- 
sently. — 2. Henry, rector of Hambledon near Henley on 
Thames, had one cliild, Emma, by his wife Elizabeth 
Weston. 

Charles, born 1740, married Katharine daughter of 
John Laroche of Egham, M.P. for Bodmin, and had 
issue, — 

1. Charles, his heir, who dying unmarried in 1831 
was succeeded by his brother. — 2. Henry Denny. — 3. 
William a London banker, mar. Rachel Jarrett of 
Ereemantle in Hampshire, and had, William, a cap- 
tain in the horse artillery, Henry, mar. to Miss 
Saunders, and Arthm*. — 4. Martha mar. to Herbert 
Newton Jarrett of Jamaica, Esq., and died 1831. 
Mr. Charles Berners died 1815, and was succeeded first by 
his son Charles, secondly by his second son, 

Eev. Henry Denny Berners, L.L.B, Archdeacon of 
Suffolk. By his wife Dinah d. of John Jarrett Esq., he had 
issue. — 1. John, b. 1800, died, s.p. — 2. Hugh, b. 1801, 
Capt. R.N. mar. 1832, Julia, d. of John Ashton of the 
Grrange, Cheshire, and has a son and three daughters. — 3. 
Ralph, b. 1803, rector of Harkstead and Erwarton in Sufifolk; 
mar. 1831 Eliza, cl. of Sir Cornelius Cuyler of Welwyn, 
bart. and had three sons and two daughters. — 4. Alice, d. 
unm. 1820. 



38 THE II0I8E OF CROMWELL. 



Children of Bridget Cronurell by Cliarles Fketn-ood, 

Hypothetically tliey may liere be assumed as five in num- 
ber, and bearing the names of, — 1. Cliarles, buried at Stoke 
Newington in 1676. — 2. Bridget, buried at Stoke Newing- 
ton in 1681. — 3. Nancy, buried in Westminster Abbey 
previous to 1659. — 4. Ellen, buried at Stoke Newington in 
1731. — 5. Mary, who became the wife of Nathaniel Carter 
of Yarmouth, and died, s.p. year unknoMoi. The authority 
for all which rests upon various allusions to children or 
approaching births occuiTing in letters passing between the 
Protector, Thiuloe, and Fleetwood, — compared with entries 
in the Stoke Newington registers. Fleetwood's will throws no 
light upon the subject ; and another difficiilty arises from the 
fact that the Miss Cromw^ells of Hampstead, whose knowledge 
of the family may be supposed to have been complete, took 
no notice in their pedigrees of any issue of Fleetwood's mar- 
riage with Bridget Cromwell. It must have been on this 
authority that the heralds Biu'ke in their Extinet and dormant 
baronetcies, p. 200 summarily declare that " of this marriage 
there was no issue" — But this declaration as to "no issue " 
is one which cannot be maintained. Thus, in respect of what 
may be termed Infant number one, Oliver writes, 22 Aug. 
1653, " My love to thy dear wife, whom indeed I entirely 
love both uatm-ally and upon the best account ; and my 
blessing, if it be worth anything, upon thy little babe." The 
existence of two others in like manner is inferred from pas- 
sages by Fleetwood ; the illness of " Nancy " being fre- 
quently referred to ; while her bui'ial in the Abbey seems to 
bo proved by the Oi'der which violated the Cromw^ell tomb at 
the Restoration ^ for in that warrant we read the name, 
among eleven others, of Anne Fleetwood. [For the letters 
in question see Thurloe, besides several in vol. 821 of the 
Lansdou-ne MSS.] While therefore this cumulative evidence 
attests the existence of a family, it must be admitted that 
there is no evidence of any of them carrying on the descent. 
In respect of one child only, namely Mary, can it be confi- 
dently asserted that maturity was reached, and she as already 
stated died without issue. In the blank absence of such 
( vidence, a tradition comes in to supply its place, that namely 
which finds favour with the Markham family of Becca-Hall 
in the west Riding of Yorkshire, to the effect that a daughter 
of Fleetwood and Bridget Cromwell, named Frances, became 
the wife of Captain Fennel of Cappagh in Ireland, whose 
daughter married Daniel Markham the grandfather of AreU- 






BKlDGfET FLEETWOOD. 89 

bishop Markliam, wliose descendants it is added may be 
counted by hundreds. See the statement in Notes (Did 
Queries, 20 April, 1867, signed by WiUiam "Wickham one of 
the race. 

Granting that the evidence furnished by the Fleetwood and 
Hartopp geneologies, though carrying the negation of silence, 
are not absolutely destructive of such a tradition ; — admitting 
also that the Miss Cromwells being proved to have ignored 
in the construction of their pedigrees palpable and indisputa- 
ble facts, may have had some private motive for suppressing 
the Fennell connexion ; yet standing alone and unsupported, 
the Mai'kham tradition must be felt to be insufficient to war- 
rant the descendants of that family ranking among the 
Cromwellians. 

It is true that Fleetwood had one married daughter, Eliza- 
beth, Avho became the wife of Sir John Hartopp ; but then 
she was the child of his first marriage with Frances Smyth. 
As to any other marriageable daughter, Mary Carter still 
excepted, all that can be said is that the record is silent The 
supj)osition has indeed been occasionally advanced by persons 
ignorant of the above facts that through tlie aforesaid Eliza- 
beth Fleetwood the Hartopps inherited Cromwellian blood, 
but there is no sort of ground for distiu'bing on this point the 
genealogy long recorded and accepted ; and the Hartopps 
may therefore be dismissed along Avith the Markhams ; — 
merely observing in eonclusion and ratification, that the 
holder of the revived Hartopp baronetcy inherits the Fleet- 
wood property in Norfolk as derived, not from Bridget 
Cromwell, but from Frances Smyth. 

There is a statement of Mark Noble's respecting the above 
Mrs. Carter, which also has been made matter of debate, — 
namely, that in anticipation of her marriage the young lady 
assumed the name of Mary Fleetwood in place of Mary 
Ireton, out of a prudential care not to parade too ostensibly 
the memory of her real father. The marriage licences of two 
of Ireton's veritable daughters, already noticed at page 67, 
indicate no such pusillanimity on their part ; and even if any 
of his children had lain under so ignominious a temptation, 
who will believe that their step-father Fleetwood would stoop 
to complicity ? But as this hypothesis of Mark Noble has 
found modern supporters, it may be as well to state that the 
matter has been ably sifted in the pages of Notes and Queries, 
by Colonel Joseph Lemuel Chester, who, more than any other 
witness, has furnished the official data by wliich a true so- 
lution can be reached. " My authority," says he, " for the 
assertion that Mary Carter was not tlie daugliter of Ireton, 



90 THE HOUSE OF CJROMWELL. 

but of his widow (Pn-idg-et Cromwell) by her second husliaud 
General Charles Fleetwood, is the original sworn allegation 
of her intended marriage, which distinctly describes her as Mrs. 
Mary Fleetwood of Stoke Newington Miclcllesex, spinster, aged 
about twenty-three, and as having the consent of Mr. Fleet- 
wood her father. Her intended husband is described as 
Nathaniel Carter of Great Yarmouth, Co. Norfolk, merchant, 
bachelor, aged about ioviy. The license was issued by the 
vicar-general of the Archbishop of Canterbmy, and is dated 
19 Feb. 1677-8. The parties were married at Stoke Newing- 
ton on the 21st. of the same month as "Mr. Nathaniel Carter 
and Mrs. Mary Fleetwood." There is an abundance of cor- 
roborative evidence, some of which I may briefly mention. 
Fifst. If she had been the daughter of Ireton, who died in 
1651, she must have been several years older than is stated in 
the allegation ; and my experience is that ages were generally 
very correctly given in marriage allegations at this periocl, 
and that the expression " about twenty-three " would mean 
either not quite or a little more than twenty- three. On the 
other hand, well-known letters of Fleetwood show that his 
wife was enceinte in 1654 and 1655, dates which would quite 
agree with the age of twenty-three, as stated in the allegation. 
Seeondhj. Fleetwood in his will left a legacy of £100 to his 
" dear daughter Carter," but did not even mention the names 
of his step-daughters the children of Ireton. Thlnlhj. On 
her monument in the Chm-ch of St. Nicholas Yarmouth, her 
name, accoyding to Mr. Dawson Tm-ner, was given as Mary 
Fleetwood. Now, in opposition to all this direct and positive 
evidence, we have, Avhat ? simply the flippant ipse dixit of the 
Eev. Mark Noble that she was really the child of Ireton, but 
chose to pass by the name of Fleetwood on account of the 
odium attached to the name of her father." .... [After 
the marriage of her half-sisters.] "It is simply absmxl to 
suppose that ten years later, the memory of Ireton had become 
so much more hateful that his o'svn daughter abandoned his 
name ; and it is still more absmxl to suppose that in an official 
document substantiated \>y the oath of the person who signed 
it, a lady should be descriljed as the daughter of one man 
when she was reaUy the daughter of another." Notes and 
Queries. 11 Nov. 1876. 

On the other hand it has been m^ged that indications of 
Mary Carter's being a daughter of Ireton are discoverable in 
her husband Nathaniel Carter's will ; the benefits of which 
flow in an Ireton rather than in a Fleetwood direction ; — thus, 
" I give to my cousin Katharine the wife of Thomas Eendysh 
Esq. £25 to buy mourning for herself and her son Ireton. 



EIJZABKrH mOMAVELL. 91 

To my sister-in-law Bridget Bendysli the gold wateli which 
my dear wife used to wear. To my dear niece Bridget Ben- 
dysh, junior, single woman, a legacy of £450. To my loving 
nephews Charles and Smj^th Fleetwood two guineas each for 
a mourning ring." And true it is that in this will of Mr. 
Carter none of the Fleetwood family are legatees except the 
two sons, and they oidy of mementoes ; — very natural also 
that Mrs. Charter's gold watch should go to her own sister Mrs. 
Bridget Bendysh (supposing that she was her own sister,) and 
equally appropriate that Mrs. Bendysh' s unmarried daughter 
should enjoy a legacy of £450. But the simple explanation 
of all this lies in the fact that the Bendysh family and not 
the Fleetwoods were the needy relatives. The gold watch 
passing to IVIi's. Bendysh merely suggests that Mrs. Carter 
had no surviving sisters more nearly allied; and Mrs. Bendysh 
was selected, we need not doubt, on the score of personal at- 
tachment, both the families residing at Yarmouth. If the 
term " sister-in-law " applied by Mr. Carter to Mrs. Bendysh 
appear to point to a closer relationship than that of his wife's 
half-sister, it is a difficulty easily waived by asking, How else 
coidd he have desig^nated her ? 



ELIZABETH 

THE PROTECTOR'S SECOND DAUGHTER 

Born at Huntingdon in 1629, — married in 1^46 to John 
Claypoole eldest son and heir of John Claypoole of North- 
borough or Norborough near Market Deeping. The father 
had fallen under the displeasure of the Court for contumacy 
in respect of ship-money, a circumstance sufficient to account 
for that personal intimacy with Oliver Cromwell which issued 
in the marriage aforesaid. Under the Protectorate the 
younger Claypoole became Master of the Horse, with other 
jiositions of emolument, besides obtaining a seat in Oliver's 
Upper House. At the Restoration, having taken no hostile 
action against the King's party, he was permitted, not with- 
out molestation, to retire into private life. His death 
occurred in 1G88, at which time he was of the Middle Temple, 
London. 

Elizabeth Cromwell was her father's favourite daughter : 



92 THE IIOTTSE OV CKOMWi;],!,. 

and judging- hj the portraits tnken at different periods of her 
life, must have been very attractive in person. The narrator 
of Sir James Harrington's recovery of his manuscript of 
Ormiia which had been seized by the Protector's orders, states 
that Sir James determined to make his application through 
the lady Claypoole "because she acted the part of a princess 
very naturally, obliging all persons with her civility, and 
frequently interceding for the miserable." This is the lady 
who has so often been made to figure in absurd pictiu'es by 
artists of the royalist-sentimental school, who represent her 
during her last illness as upbraiding her father for the part 
he had taken against the King, — Oliver meanwhile appearing 
to shriidv beneath the charge, and wearing the aspect of a 
convicted thief. But all these representations may safely be 
dismissed as beneath contemi:)t. The terms on which that 
father and daughter stood were of a character far too sacred 
to be disparaged by royalist ribaldry ; and the love Avhich 
had outlasted many trials was encreasingl}^ ardent and con- 
genial in proportion as their respective characters were un- 
folded. It is no wonder that a heart so susceptible as Eliza- 
beth's should at first have been dazzled by the rapid rise of 
her family ; but the lessons of personal affiietion which 
became her early lot, conjoined with the ardent love of her 
parents, eventually quenched all inferior passions, and kept 
her steady to " The good old Cause." Thenceforward the 
sympathy between father and child was absolute and com- 
plete : a few traces of their intercourse will now be noticed. 

His parental anxiety has been already witnessed in the 
letter written to her elder sister Bridget in 1646. Five years 
later, when she was living with her husband at Norborough 
House, and had apparently just recovered from the perils of 
childbirth, Oliver writing from Edinburgh to her mother, 
says, — " Mind poor Betty of the Lord's great mercy. Oh, I 
desu-e her not only to seek the Lord in her necessity, but in 
deed and in truth to tirrn to the Lord and to keep close to 
Him ; and to take heed of a departing heart and of being 
cozened with worldly vanities ancl worldly company, which I 
doubt she is too subject to. I earnestly and frequently pray 
for her and for him. Trul}^ they are dear to me, very dear ; 
and I am in fear lest Satan should deceive them, knowing 
how weak om- hearts are and how subtle the adversarj^ is, and 
what way the deceitfuluess of our hearts and the A^ain world 
make for his temptations. The Lord give them truth of heart 
to Him. Let them seek Him in truth and thej' shall find Him. 
My love to the dear little ones. I pray for grace for them. I 
thank them for their letters ; let me have them often." 



EJJ/AI'.KT11 (KOMWELJ.. 93 

Four years subsequently another domestic episode engaged 
the parents' sjTnpathy.— The following scraps of intelligence 
pointing apparently to the birth at Whitehall of her fom-th 
and last child, will sufficiently tell the tale. — "My lady 
Elizabeth continues ill, but we hope mending. Her Highness 
[the Protectress] is recovered. It was grief [which brought 
her down], but now his Highness and she rest well "... 
" I never saw two parents so affected e'er now as my Lord 
Protector and her Highness." Fleetwood myites,— " The 
illness of my sister Claypoole is so very great that both their 
Highnesses are under a great trial. You know the dearness 
they have iinto her ; and though we know not how the Lord 
wdl deal with her, yet her recovery is much doubted. This 
afternoon hath given very great cause of fear" ; but he adds 
m a postscript,—" Since the witing hereof my sister Clay- 
poole IS fallen into travail, and so her condition is very 
hopeful." "^ 

She did in fact survive the trial, but never seems to have 
recovered robust health. During the next year she joined 
her two unmanned sisters Mary and Frances at Hampton 
Court and appears to have resided there for the remaining 
two years of her life. The following letter dated a few weeks 
before her death and presumably the last she ever wi'ote, is 
adcbessed to her sister in law Henry Cromwell's wife, 'it 
contains a reference to the latest plots against her father's 
life. 



Lad// Ehzahdh Clai/poole to Laxhi Elizabeth CromweU 
12 June 1658. ' 

Dear Sister,— I must beg your pardon that I do not 
wnte to you so oft as I would do; but in earnest I have been 
soextreem sickly of late that it has made me unfit for any- 
thing ; though there is nothing that can please me more than 
wherein I may express my true love and respect to you, which 
1 am sm-e none has more reason than myself, both for your 
former favom^s and the sense you have of any thing which 
arises to me of happiness. I will assm-e you, nothing of that 
can be to me wherein I have not a power to express how 
really I love and honour you. Truly the Lord has been very 
gracious to us, m doing for us above what we could exiiect • 
and now has shewed Himself more extraordinary in deliveriiK^ 
my father out of the hands of his enemies ; which we hav? 
all reason to be sensible of, in a very particular manner • for 
certainly not only his family would have been ruined, but iu 



94 THE HOUSE OF CROMWELL. 

all probal)ility the wliole nation would have Leen involved in 
blood. The Lord grant it may never be forgotten by us, but 
that it may cause us to depend upon Him from whom we 
have received all good, and that it may cause us to see the 
mutableness of these things, and to use them accordingly : I 
am sure we have need to beg that sjiirit from Grod. Harry is 
very well : I hope you will see him this summer. Truly there 
is nothing I desire more than to enjoy you with us ; and I 
wish that you may [lie-in] here. I beg my true affection to 
yoiu' little ones. Hear Sister, I am, — Your most affectionate 
sister and servant, 

Eliza HETH Claypoole. 

Thus, every testimony which we possess of a direct or 
personal kind shows her to have been loyal to the cause of 
her gallant father. Attempts have been made to prove her 
sympathy with Hr. Hewitt and other episcopalian plotters, 
and an infamous letter to that effect has even been fabri- 
cated in her name ; but her own words negative the insinua- 
tion ; and a truer portrait of her, spite of its allegorical 
efflorescence, may be read in the folloAving panegyric by 
Carrington, the earliest of the Cromwell biographers. 

After speaking of the joy which the captm^e of Dunkirk 
occasioned, Carrington goes on, — " The lawrels faded and the 
joys abated by the interposing of the cypress tree which 
Heath planted upon the tomb of the illustrious and most 
generous lady Claypoole, second daughter to his late High- 
ness, who departed this life to a more glorious and eternal 
one on the sixth day of August this present year, a fatal 
prognostication of a more sensible ensuing loss. For even 
as branches of trees being cut and lopped in an ill season, do 
first di-aw away the sap from the tree and afterwards cause 
the body thereof to draw up and die ; in like manner, during 
the declining age of his late Highness, an ill season, in which 
men usually do (as it were) reap all their consolation from 
the youth and vigoiu' of their children, wherein they seem to 
go to ruin by degrees as they draw near to their death, it 
unfortunately fell out that this most illustrious daughter, the 
true representative and lively image of her father, the joy of 
his heart, the delight of his eyes, and the dispenser of his 
clemency and benignity, died in the flower of her age : — • 
which struck more to his heart than all the heavy bm-den of 
his affairs, which were only as a pleasure and a pastime to 
his great soul ; — so great a poAver hath nature over the dis- 
positions of generous men when the tie of blood is seconded 
by love and virtue. This generous and noble lady Elizabeth 



EJ.lZAHETll CKOMWKI,!,. 9^ 

therefore departed this world in despite of all the skill of 
physicians, the prayers of those afflicted persons whom she 
had i-elieved, and the vows of all kinds of artists whom she 
cherished. But she died an Amazonian-like death, despising 
the pomps of the Earth ; and without any grief, saving to 
leave an afflicted father perplexed at her so suddenly being 
taken away, she died with those good lessons in her mouth 
which she had practiced while she lived. And if there he 
any comfort left us in her death, it is in the hope we have 
that her good example will raise up the like inclination in 
the remainder of her sisters whom Heaven hath yet left us. 
I shall not at all speak of her funeral, for if I might have been 
credited, all the Muses and their Grod Apollo should have 
made for her an Epicedimn, and ajopeared in mom^ning which 
should have reached from the top of theii- Mount Parnassus 
to the bottom of the valley thereof." 

_Her funeral, to put it into plain English, comprized a 
lying in state in the Painted Chamber, and a pompous pro- 
cession on the night of the 10th of August 1658 to a new 
vault in Henry VII. 's chapel ; her aunt Eobina (Mrs. Wil- 
kins) walking as chief mom^ner. She died on the sixth of 
August, just four weeks before her father. 

Horace Walpole says, " Lord Pelham has a small three- 
quarters of Mrs. Claypoole, on which is m'itten 31. Rltus fee. 
It is an emblematic piece, the allegory of which is very 
obscure, but highly finished." M. Eitus stands for Michael 
AVright, a Scots painter. Lord Pelham probably acquired 
this relic tlirough his wife Anne Frankland the great grand- 
daughter of Frances Cromwell. Aueeehtes of painting. 

There was long a tradition at Norborough House that 
Oliver was fond of spending his Chi-istmas there. The Pro- 
tectress seems to have had a similar attachment to the spot ; 
it was there that she spent the evening of her days. 

The children of Elizabeth Cromwell and John Claypoole 
were three sons and one daughter. 

^ I. Cromwell, born about 1647, to whom his father re- 
signed his manor of Norborough with appendages. He died 
a bachelor in 1678 and was biu-ied in the chancel of Nor- 
borough ChiuTh, according to his express direction, as near 
to the body of his grandmother the Protectress as conveni- 
ence would admit. The family relics at his disposal he left 
to his cousins, having no surviving brother or sister directly 
descended, but only a half-sister. His will may be read in 
cxtenso in Mark Noble's Protectorate. 

II. Henry, went as is supposed into the army, and pre- 
deceased his brother. 



9(5 TUK llOUSH OF CKOMWKl.l,. 

III. Olr-er, died young, during the last illness of his 
mother, a circumstance which precipitated her own dissolu- 
tion. . ' . . 

ly. Mahtha, died young and unmarried ; buried in Nor- 
borough Church 1664. 

It will thus be seen that ^vith the death of Mr. CromA^^ell 
Claypoole in 1678 this branch of the Protector's family dies 
out. True it is that ever and anon persons of the name of 
Claypoole or Claypole are found cropping up to claim de- 
scent through that channel. But descent from John Clay- 
poole is not enough, since he married a second time. Clay- 
pooles inheriting the blood of Cromwell through the Lady 
Elizabeth are no longer in existence. 



MARY 

THE PEOTECTOR'S THIRD DAUGHTER 

Born at Ely, and christened at Huntingdon in 1637. It 
is believed that when only seventeen years of age she had to 
encounter the matrimonial proposals of Sir Anthony Ashley 
Cooper, afterwards Earl of Shaftesbury. Edmund Ludlow 
is our principal authority for the statement, which occurs 
among the suppressed passages in his " J/cv;?o?>s," a work 
from which every thing reflecting injuriously on the character 
or career of Shaftesbury was cut out previous to publication. 
— " Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, who was first for the King, 
then for the Parliament, then in Cromwell's first assembly 
for the reformation, arid afterwards for Cromwell against the 
reformation ; now being denied Cromwell's daughter Mary 
in marriage, he appears against Cromwell's design in the last 
assembly, and is therefore dismissed the Council, Cromwell 
being resolved to act there as the chief juggler himself." 
Oldmixon and Anthony a'Wood sustain this testimony, 
though neither of them give the name of Mary. Cromwell 
must have thought favourably of him when he summoned 
him to join his first Convention ; since then, he had probably 
read him down. But whatever was the cause of alienation, 
the matrimonial suit appears to have miscarried suddenly 
and entirely. Perhaps the young lad}' herself entertained 
personal objections to one who had already had two wives 



MAllY CllOMWEJ.L. 97 

and was nearly twice her own age. Mr. Cliristio the modern 
editor of the Shafteshmy papers throws doubt on the whole 
transaction. 

The next suitor was Sir Edward Mansfield of Wales, of 
whom next to nothing is recorded. Fleetwood in a letter to 
Henry Cromwell, preserved in the Lansdowne mss. 821, 
" hopes he may be worthy of so deserving a lady ;" which 
perhaps means, he hopes Sir Edward will not get' her. The 
claims of the Welch knight, whoever he was, quickly paled 
before the advances of a more dashing aspirant in the person 
of Thomas Bellasyse Viscount Faueonborg, who was just then 
returning from foreign travel, intently resolved on snatching 
if ])Ossible the glittering prize for himself. 

Lord Fauconberg, who was about 29 years of age, was 
also, like Mary Cromwell's first lover, a widower, but he was 
the representative of an illustrious family holding large estates 
in Dmham, Yorkshire, and Lancashire, to which, as also to 
the title, he had recently succeeded upon the death of his 
grandfather Thomas the first Yiscount Fauconberg. Sir 
Itichard Bellasyse the Knight of Dm-ham had served on the 
Committee acting in the Parliament's behalf for that county ; 
but with almost this sole exception the entire clan had been 
avowed royalists during the war, and Oliver no doubt felt 
that union with the new lord would tend to conciliate an im- 
portant section of aristocratic malcontents. Seconded there- 
fore by_ the Protectoral policy, the young man's ambition 
found little or no obstacle in its path. He commenced his 
suit when passing through Paris from Italy in the spring of 
1657, by enlisting the services of Sir William Lockhart the 
English ambassador in the Court of Louis XIY, in whom he 
found an ally who was not only the husband of one of Oliver's 
nieces, but a statesman whose diplomatic career reflected more 
credit on the Protestant Protector's name than any other of 
his Continental representatives. And so well did the ambas- 
sador plead the suitor's cause with Mr. Secretary Thurloe, 
vindicating him from the charge of supposed llomanist pro- 
clivities, and enlarging on his personal endowments and on 
his attachment to the actual form of government, that the 
young lord's arrival in England and presentation at court w\as 
speedily followed by his nuptials, which took place at Hamp- 
ton Com-t with great pomp and magnificence, on the 19th of 
Novenaber 1657. The public ceremony was performed 
according to the simple ritual then in use among the Pm-itans ; 
but before the day was over, hy general consent, the marriage 
contract was repeated in the Anglican form. Andrew Mar- 
veil thereupon issued a pastoral eclogue, and the news- writers 

H 



98 THE HOUSE OF CROMWELL. 

did their best to follow in fancy's train and snatch a ray from 
Parnassus, but their effusions must not detain us. Her 
brother Henry whose duties kept him in Ireland, seems to 
have been the only absent member of the family. Lord and 
Lady Fauconberg therefore immediately after the marriage 
interchanged letters with him and his wife, full of cordial 
salutations; which may be read in TIno'Joe. Of this marriage 
there was no smwiving issue ; the following letter \\a-itten by 
the husband only three months afterwards will explain itself. 



Lord Fanco)iher<j to Henry Cromwell Lord Bopnty of 
Lreland. 

Whitehall 26 February l(3r)8. 

My Lord. — This place is at present so distracted with the 
death of my brother llich. — especially my dame, whose present 
condition makes it more dangerous to her than the rest, that 
I must humbly beg yoiu- lordship's pardon if in short I only 
tell you that Major-Greneral Packer, four Captains, and the 
Captain-Lieutenant, after an obstinate persisting, even to his 
llighness's face, in their dislike of his governement, were this 
week cashiered. 

My lord, I am just now called to my poor wife's succour ; 
therefore I must humbly entreat of your lordship leave to 
subscribe myself, sooner than I intended, My lord, your lord- 
ship's most faithful humble servant, 

Fauconberg. 

Henry Cromwell in reply, says, — " I hope your lordship's 
being called to succour my dear sister, your lady, tends but to 
repair our family of the late loss it hath sustained ; and I 
hope that the sad apprehensions occasioned by this late stroke 
will not frustrate om- hopes therein." 

The first form in which the Protector proceeded to utilize 
the new connection was by sending his son-in-law on a mission 
of congratulation to the French Court on the successes of 
Louis's arms against the Spaniards in co-operation with " the 
Six Thousand " sent from England; for the narrative of all 
which, together with Lord Faueonberg's tour in the north of 
England on his return from France, see the chapter on Dun- 
kirk siege. During this tour in the northern counties the 
Earl was accompanied by his youthful bride. All contem- 
j)orai'ies agree in attributing a large share of beauty to Lady 
Fauconberg, a testimony which is fully borne out by her ex- 
tant portraits. The return south of the Earl and Countess is 



MARY CROMWELL 99 

thus clironicled by a weekly newspaper. — " Hampton Court' 
30 July. This evening here arrived the most noble lord the 
Lord Fauconberg, with his most illustrious lady the Lady 
Mary ; being safe returned out of the North, where, in all 
places of their journey, and particularly at York, the people 
of those parts made so large expression of their duty, in the 
houom's done to the person and vii'tues of this most religious 
lady, and of their extraordinary affection towards this merito- 
rious lord, as abundantly manifested what a high esteem his 
noble qualities have piu'chased him in his own as well as in 
other counties." Mevcurius Pollticus. 

All this sounds very prosperous and re-assuring, yet in truth 
the storm in which the family fortunes were about to be en- 
gulphed was already lowering as the party reached Hampton- 
Court. The Lady Elizabeth Claypoole lay dying. Their 
brother Richard who had been into the West of England on 
an errand similar to that of Fauconberg, was just arrived from 
Bath, and the Protector himself was worn out with grief and 
protracted watching. The next issue of the Mercurins an- 
nounces the lady Claypoole's death. 

Mark Noble, strange to say, while admitting July I608 as 
the date of Fauconberg's visit to the North, of which there is 
no manner of doubt, yet places the event under Richard's Pro- 
tectorate, which deprives the affair of all meaning and credible 
likelihood. The Earl, it is true, gave a prompt adherence to 
Richard's accession, but there were no " triumphal progresses " 
after Oliver's departure. Fauconberg in fact clescried the 
coming storm more quickly than many did, and took his 
measures accordingly. But before following him through the 
political labyrinth of the horn-, let us linger awhile to hear 
him lament with unstudied pathos the irreparable loss which 
his country had sustained in the death of the first Protector. 
He thus announces the fact to his brother-in-law Henry. 



Lord Fauconberg to Hennj CronuceU. 

Whitehall 7 Sep. 1668. 
Dear my Lord. This bearer Mr. Underwood brings your 
lordship the sad news of om' general loss in your incomparable 
father's death, by which these poor nations are deprived of 
the greatest personage and instrument of happiness that not 
only our o\m, but indeed any age else, ever produced. The 
preceding night and not before, in presence of foui' or five of 
the Council he declared my lord Richard his successor. The 
next morning he grew speechless, and departed betwixt tluee 

Life. 



loo TiiK housp: ok cuomwkjj,. 

and four in the evening. A hard dispensation it was, but so 
has it seemed good to the all-wise God. And what remains 
to poor creatures but to lay om^ hands upon our mouth to the 
declaration of His pleasure ? Some three hom'S after his de- 
cease (a time spent only in framing tlie draft, not in any 
doubtful dispute) was your lordship's brother, his now High- 
ness, declared Protector of these nations with f\dl consent of 
coimcil, soldier, and city. The next day he was proclaimed 
in the usual places. All the time his late Highness was draw- 
ing on to his end, the consternation and astonishment of people 
is unexpressible. Their hearts seemed as sunk within them. 
And if thus, abroad in the family, your lordsliip may imagine 
how it was with her Highness and other near relations. My 
poor wife, I know not what in the Earth to do with her. 
"When seemingly quieted, she bursts out again into passion 
tJiat tears her very heart in pieces ; nor can I blame her, con- 
sidering what she has lost. It fares little better with others. 
Grod I trust will sanctify this bitter cup to us all. His mercy 
is extraordinary as to the quiet face of things amongst us ; 
which I hope the Lord will continue. I am, Your lordship's 
most affectionately faithful and very humble servant, 

Fauconuerg. 

Ijord Fauconberg facilitated the restoration of ro^^alty as 
soon as he saw it was ine^•itable. To the King himself the 
recovery of such an agency was especially welcome ; for the 
link which attached Fauconberg to the Cromwellian destinies 
carried with it an added force. With which course of action 
the influence of Henry Cromwell, though less demonstrative, 
must needs be associated. In this they stood apart from 
Lockhart, whose personal alliance with some of the liepub- 
lican party made him slow to believe in the possibility of 
such an universal revolt, — till it was too late. 

The Restoration being accomplished, Fauconberg was at 
once installed into the offices of lieutenant of the Bishoprick 
of Durham, Lord-Lieutenant and Gustos Rotulorum of the 
North Riding of Yorkshire, and Ambassador-extraordinary 
to Venice Tuscany and Savoy. He enjoyed the favour of 
the three succeeding monarchs, diverse as were their prin- 
ciples ; and dying in 1700 was buried at Gockswold in York- 
shire, where a lengthy epitaph, recited in Le Neve's lloini- 
nienfa Anrjiiraiift, records his virtues and his prosperous career. 
In the construction of this epitaph it liad been Lady Mar) 's 
original intention to exhibit more definitely his alliance with 
the Protectorate ; to which end, says Lord Dartmouth, " slie 
desii-ed Sir Harry Sheers to wi'ite an inscrii^tion for the nionu- 



ment, and would have it inserted that in such a year Faucon- 
berg maiTiod his Highness the then Lord Protector of 
England's daughter ; which Sir Harry told her he feared 
might give oifence. She answered, that nobody could disjmte 
matters of fact, and therefore insisted on its being done." 
The wording eventually adopted shows tliat she yielded some- 
what to her friend's objection, though of course it duly sets 
forth whose daughter she was. Her own death occurred in 
1718 at the age of seventy six, shortly after that of her 
brother Richard, and she was bimed at Chiswick on the 24th 
of March. Sutton Court, the house in which she lived and 
died at Chiswick, no longer exists. It stood very near the 
west end of the parish chui-ch. Neither is there any monu- 
ment to her in the church. J. Maekay speaking of this 
spot in his Journcij ihrougli England, says, " I saw here a 
great and curious piece of antiquity, the eldest daughter of 
Oliver Cromwell, who was then fresh and gay" ; date not 
given. Grrainger, having stated that in the decline of life she 
was pale and sickly, adds, — " Since this note was printed I 
had the honour to be informed by the Earl of Ilchester who 
remembers her well and to whom she was godmother, that 
she must have been far gone in the decline of life whyu she 
was pale and sickly, as she was not naturally of such a com- 
plexion." The testimonies as to her personal merit are 
uniformly eulogistic. Bishop Burnet styles her a wise and 
worthy woman, and one who was more likely to have main- 
tained the post of I'rotector than either of her brothers. A 
footnote in IlugJtea's Letters describes her as a Lady of great 
beauty and of a very high spirit, who distinguished herself 
till her death by the quickness of her wit and the solidity of 
her judgment." Mr. Hewling Luson in the same volume 
writes as follows, " She was said to have been a Lady of a 
very great understanding. This was the ' noble relation ' 
referred to in Mr. Say's character [of Mrs. Bendysh] who 
left Mrs. Bendysh a handsome legacy ; as she did also to the 
other descendants of her father Oliver to whom such an aid 
might be useful. She died wealthy, and never had a child." 
She betrayed, some thought, in her last will an undue par- 
tiality for her own personal relatives, for she left every thing 
in her power away from her husband's kindred, including 
Fauconberg House in Soho Square, the town residence of the 
family. Some interesting relics however descended to the 
last heir of the Fauconbergs, among which was the sword 
worn by Oliver at the battle of Naseby. There are extant 
two or three letters of Lady Mary's to her brother Henry. 
The first, addressed in 1655 and warning him against tin 



102 THE HOUSE OF (^OMWELL. 

influence of some intriguing lady who had made a lodgment 
in his Irish household ; the second, giving a long account of 
their sister Frances's marriage negociations, — may be read in 
Carlyle's Letters and Speeelies. A third, here following, 
relates to the last illness of their mother the Protectress. 
When that sorely stricken lady found an asylum at Nor- 
horough House, Lady Mary was her frequent visitor, and 
this brief letter, seems to point to the latest of those inter- 
views. 



Lady Mary Fauconherej to Henry Cromwell of Spinney-Ahheij. 

(1665 ?) 

Dear Brother, — I have sent this bearer on purpose to 
see you and my sister, fearing I shall not see you before I go 
from hence. My poor mother is so affecting a spectacle as I 
scarce know how to write ; she continuing much the same as 
she was when you were here. The Lord knows best what is 
best for us to suffer, and therefore I desire we may willingly 
submit to his will ; but the condition she is in is very sad ; 
the Lord help her and us to bear it. I am now able to say 
no more, my heart being so oppressed, but that I am, your 
dear wife's and your affectionate sister, 

M. Fauconberg. 



FRANCES 

THE PROTECTOR'S FOURTH DAUGHTER. 

Born at Ely in 1638, was married in December 1657 to 
the Hon. Robert Rich, eldest son of Lord Rich and grandson 
of Robert Earl of Warwick the Admii-al of the Fleet and 
the veteran peer who carried Oliver's sword of state at the 
proclamation of his protectorate. But this was by no means 
the first love affair which had engaged her notice. In the 
first place there seems no sufficient reason for discrediting the 
story of a projected alliance Avith the exiled King Charles, in 
which Lord Broghill acted as the medium of negociation. It 
wears at least an air of greater probability than the rej^orts 
[preserved in Thurloe's papers] which in 1654 were circulated 



FRANCES CROMWELL. 103 

in France to the effect that the Duke d'Enghein, only son of 
the Prince of Conde, was her favoured suitor. The Dulie of 
Buckingham is the third name on the list, but his chances 
must have been slender in the extreme. Her foiu'th gallant 
was the Eev. Jeremiah White, or " Jerry White " as he was 
commonly called, one of her father's chaplains and a fellow 
of Trinity College Cambridge. He is described as possessing 
a handsome person and an engaging address ; though his 
extant portrait, photographed by the Arundel Society, can 
hardly be said to warrant the encomium. Another attribute 
with which he is credited, that of a ready wit, rests possibly 
on better authority. Oliver put it to the test on one occasion 
in a somewhat crucial form ; — and thus it fell out. Having 
l)een given reason to suspect that his aspiring chaplain had 
carried his amatory professions too far, Cromwell managed to 
entrap the couple just at a moment \\'hen Jerry Avas on his 
knees, caressing the Lady Frances's hand. " What is the 
meaning of that postm-e before my daughter?" demanded 
he. Here Jerry's wit came to his aid, — " May it please your 
Highness, I have long unsuccessfully courted the young gen- 
tlewoman yonder, my Lady's waiting-maid, and I was now 
therefore hmnbly praying her Ladyship to say a word in my 
behalf." Tm'ning to the waiting-maid, Oliver went on, — 
" Well, hussey, and why shoidd you refuse Mr. White's 
offers ? You must know that he is my friend, and I expect 
that you will treat him as such." Here the ready wit of the 
maiden proved smarter even than Jerry's. "If Mr. White," 
says she, " intends me that honom-, I shall not oppose him." 
— " Say est thou so, lass?" rejoined Cromwell, "call Good- 
wyn ; this business shall be finished at once." Mr. Chaplain 
Goodwyn arrived, the parties were married on the spot, and 
Cromwell by way of solatium made them a present of £500. 
[This scene was painted by Augustus Egg in 1842. See the 
Exhibition catalogue for that year. No. 548.] A union 
effected after this fashion was not likely to be productive of 
much mutual regard, nor was the result felicitous, though 
they contrived to live together as man and wife for half a 
centm-y longer. "I knew them both," says Oldmixon the 
historian, " and heard the story told when Mrs. White was 
present, who did not contradict it, and owned there was 
something in it." But Jerry, though taken down in this 
abrupt style, always maintained a marvellous influence in the 
Cromwell family. Years after the Kestoration, when the 
Protectress was living at Norborough, he was entrusted with 
the entire management of her pecuniary affau-s. At that 
time he was occupying the position of chaplain in the family 



104 tht; hot'se of c'Romwell. 

of Sir Jolin Russell of Chippenliam the Lady Frances's 
second husband ; previous to which he had enjoyed the con- 
fidence of her father in law Sir Francis Russell, as evidenced 
by a long and curious letter, (in the possession of Mr. Field 
of Teddington,) which the knight sent him in 1663 touching 
his bodily aihncnts and the benefits which he had derived 
from the chaplain's curative measures. Master White's 
talent seems to have been multifarious, He wrote an Essay 
on Universal Restoration, and he gathered a List of many 
hundreds of the sufi'erers for Nonconformity. 

Jerry White bein^ checkmated, the Button afi^air next be- 
comes prominent. Cromwell, it is assumed, had at some time 
entered into a verbal engagement with John Dutton a wealthy 
freeholder of Sherborne in Glostershire to bestow his daughter 
Frances in marriage on William Dutton the nephew or grand- 
son (iicpos) of that gentleman ; and in his will, dated 1655, 
Mr. Dutton expresses an " earnest desire that it might take 
efi^ect." How Cromwell and his daughter looked upon this 
mode of courtship is not recorded ; all we know is that at the 
age of nineteen the young lady practically waived it by falling 
in love with the Hon. Robert Rich aforesaid. 

This young man, losing his mother at an early age, was at 
her dying request placed under the care of Dr. Gauden, by 
whose recommendation he first Avent to College, and with 
whom he then made a foreign tour. On retm^ning home, 
being deeply in love with Frances Cromwell, he sought her 
hand at once, though at the time he was in a very sickly state 
of health. The marriage came off in December 1657, it can 
harcll}^ be supposed with the Protector's hearty concmTeucc. 
His clisorderappears to have been of a scrofulous nature, cany- 
ing him oif in the ensuing February, only two months after 
the wedding. His grandfather the old Earl of Warwick, 
when he heard of it, said that if they would keep the body 
above ground a little while, they might carry his own along 
with it ; and indeed he survivt'd only two months longer. To 
complete the tragedy, Mr. Rich's father who succeeded to the 
Earldom, followed his father and his son in the com-se of the 
next year. 

The collapse of this matrimonial affair was deeply felt by 
all parties concerned ; for the mutual friendship of the two 
houses was of long standing, dating back to associations con- 
nected with Felsted where the family of Rich was seated, and 
ratified by political sympathies during the recent war. Henry 
undertook to send a message of condolence to Christian, Coun- 
tess of Devonshire, the grandmother of the deceased ; and 
Oliver performed the same office to the Earl of Warwick. 



FRANCES CllOMWKLL. 105 

Would that tlie latter were recoverable ; for the old Sea-King's 
reply is so noble a tribute to the character of the Protector 
that something very thrilling must have inspired it. The 
Earl's letter which is very long may be seen entire in Dr. 
William Harris's Life of Oliver. It concludes, — " Others 
goodness is their own. Yours is a whole country's — yea, three 
kingdoms' ; for which you justly possess interest and renown 
with wise and good men. Virtue is a thousand escutcheons. 
Gro on my lord, go on happily, to love religion, to exemplify 
it. May your lordship long continue an instrument of use, a 
pattern of virtue, and a precedent of glory." Recalling the 
enthusiasm which that age awoke, we no longer wonder at the 
exploits of seamen led by Captain Potter and fightmg in the 
Coiidant Warin'ck. 

Pich's funeral was conducted with great pomp on tlie 
5th of March I608, the corpse being carried toFelsted for in- 
terment in the family vaidt, and the funeral sermon delivered 
by Dr. Grauden. Of all the extant specimens of that dreary 
species of literature, the funeral sermon, this of Grauden's is 
one of the most nauseous. It occupies a hundred and fomieen 
pages of close printing ; but our pity for the auditors is some- 
what relieved by the statement in the title-page that it was in 
part only delivered from the pulpit. Like many of his other 
performances it betrays throughout his strategetic habit of 
thought and his vitriolic contempt for puritanism. Funerals 
made cordials, such is its title ; and the Dedication is addressed 
to the young widow herself. Alas, poor lady Frances, did she 
ever encounter the crucifixion of reading it ? Dr. Gauden 
was very fond of anatomy. Natural, metaphorical, or eclesi- 
astical, it all served his turn. In the hands of your genuine 
philosopher, figures of speech may become valuable methods 
of descriptive thought : in Dr. Grauden's hands they provoke 
a very unwholesome feeling. " Experience hath taught us," 
sa}'s he, "that a dead hand is an excellent means, by rubbing 
it on wens and humours of the body, to allay, disperse, and as 
it were, mortify, that irregular and deformed excrescency. 
The same receipt of a dead hand miglit serve, if duly applied 
to oiu" souls, as a sovereign remedy against all that is of a 
puffy and exalting nature in the world." The doctor is prac- 
tical enough when he comes to describe in detail the internal 
pathology of struma or the King's evil ; but as this is not an 
attractive subject, we may pass on to notice his anxiety that 
the people should understand how instrmnental he had him- 
self been in directing the young man's studies through the 
orthodox channels, a step eminently needful in the age through 
which they had recently passed, — an age, says he, in which 



106 THE HOVSE GF CHOMWELl,. 

ignorance and rusticity began very rudely to vie with both 
the famous Universities, decrying all good learning and useful 
studies, to make way for pitiful raptures and sill}^ enthusi- 
asms, — putting out the two great lights of Heaven [Oxford 
and Cambridge] in order that hedge-creeping glowworms 
might shine the better, — that instead of a sage nobility, a 
prudent gentry, a learned clergy, judicious lawyers, and 
knowing physicians, the honour, civility, and piety, — the souls, 
the estates, the laws, and religion, — the bodies and lives of 
this so renowned church and populous nation, might be ex- 
posed to the wills and hands of John-a-Leidens and Jack- 
straws, to Cripperdolins and Muncers ; to Ilackets and Naylers, 
to lack-Latin preachers, pettifogging barretors and impudent 
mountebanks, — all of them perfect imposters in their several 
professions : — a project so unchristian, so unhuman, so bar- 
barous, so diabolical, as suited no interest but that of the 
kingdom of darkness, which the wise and merciful Grod hath 
hitherto defeated, and I hope ever will, if He have any favom" 
toward England beyond Turkey, Tartary, or Barbary." — All 
which was a slander indirectly levelled against the Cromwell 
party, though he knew very well that they had been the sup- 
porters and restorers of learning at the Universities. This 
Dr Grauclen was the renowned divine who deprived King 
Charles I of the reputed authorship of the Eikon BasUike by 
claiming to have written it himself, and who eventually got a 
bishoprick — to keep him quiet. Shoidd it be asked, how came 
such a person to officiate at the obsequies of a son-in-law of 
Cromwell ? the answer is, his mother who made the choice 
was a Cavendish. 

Some two or three years after her husband's death, the 
young widow the Lady Frances became the wife of Sir John 
Hussell third baronet of Chippenham, Co. Cambridge, and the 
eventual ancestress of numerous and wide-spreading groups of 
Cromwellian descendants. She survived her second husband 
fifty-one years, spending a considerable portion of her later 
life with her sister Lady Faucoiiberg. Finally she outlived 
all those of her own generation, and died in 1721 at tlie age 
of eighty-four. 



The Family of Russell. 

First became conspicuous in the person of Thomas Russell 
of the Isle of \Yight in Henry YI.'s time. The baronet of 
the Civil War period, viz.. Sir Francis, was an ardent sup- 
porter of the Parliament's cause, a num of high morality and 



FRANCES CROMWELL. 107 

humanity, and a personal friend of Oliver. Of his fomieen 
children, besides his eldest son John who married Frances 
Cromwell, Elizabeth married Henry Cromwell the Protec- 
tor's fourth son, and Sarah married Sir John Reynolds, of 
whom larger notice will have to be taken. The issue of the 
Lady Frances Cromwell by Sir John Russell consisted of five 
children, viz, 

I. Sir "William, the fomih baronet, of whom pre- 
sently. 

II. Rich, so named in commemoration of his mother's first 
marriage ;- —became a Greneral in the army, — married his 
cousin Mabel, daughter of Grerard Russell of Fordham, and 
after her death. Miss Katharine Barton ; leaving one daughter, 
Mary, bj^which wife uncertain, who married Richard Mills, vicar 
of liillingdon, Midx., but left no issue. 

III. Christian, a daughter so named in memory of 
Christian, Countess of Devonshire aforesaid. She died in 
childhood in 1669. 

IV. Elizabeth, born 1664, became the wife of Sir Thomas 
Frankland, of whom presently. 

V. John, third and posthumous son. Governor of Fort 
William in Bengal ; — died at Bath, 1735, having married, 
first, Rebecca sister of Sir Charles Eyre of Kew, by whom ho 
had one son and three daughters. He married secondly 
Joanna sole daughter and heiress of Mr. Thmlbone of the 
Chequers, Bucks, sergeant at law. The children of the first 
marriage were 

1. Frances, born 1700, died 1775, bedchamber- 
woman to the Princess Amelia. Mar. John, son of 
Colonel Rivett of the Guards, but leaving no issue, 
his estate of the Chequers passed to his sister Mary, 
who, as will be seen presently, married Charles 
Russell. 

2. Charles, born 1701, died 1754, was a Colonel in 
the army, fought at Dettingen and Fontenoy ; — mar- 
ried 1787 Mary Joanna Cutts, d. of Col. Rivett afore- 
said, who became the heiress of Chequers, and by 
whom he had, besides Mary, [bedchamber- woman to 
the Princess Amelia after her aunt Fanny (.?)] one 
son, John, eventually the eighth baronet. 

3. Mary, married to Mr. Holmes of the East Indies. 
No issue. 

4. Elizabeth, born 1704, mar. Samuel Greenhill of 
Swincombe, Oxford, and had issue, John Russell 
Greenhill, LL.D. of Cottesford Ho. Oxf. who took 
the Russell estates under the will of the ninth baro- 



1()(S Till-; iiorsE OF cromavell. 

net. lie mar. Elizabeth only child of M. Noble of 
Sunderland, Esq. and had a son, Ilobert, created a 
baronet by Lord Grrey in 1831, at whose death, s.p. in 
183G, the property passed by his will to Sir. Ivob. 
Frankland, who thereupon assumed the surname of 
Russell in addition to and after that of Frankland. 
Sir John Russell the third baronet was succeeded by his 
son, 

Sill WiLiJAM RirssELE, the fourth baronet, born about 
1660 ; whose lavish expenditure in furtherance of the Re^s'O- 
lution of 1688 is su})posed to have been the occasion of his 
selling the Chippenham manor to the Earl of Orford. lie 
died in 1725, leaving two sons, 

Sir William Russell, the fifth baronet, dying unmar- 
ried in 1738 at Passage near Waterford, was succeeded by 
his brother. 

Sir Francis Russell, the sixth baronet. Governor of 
Fort- William in Bengal ; — married 1725, Anne Gee, and left 
one son. 

Sir William Russell, the seventh baronet ; Lieutenant 
in the Guards; — died a bachelor in 1757, when the title de- 
scended to his second cousin mentioned above, viz., 

Sir John Russell, the eighth baronet, — barrister at law, 
of Lincoln's Inn. He died prematm-ely, 1783, at the age of 
forty-two, at the seat of Sir Henry Oxenden in Kent, from 
inflammation of the bowels occasioned by eating melons, and 
was much lamented as a kind and generous man. His wife 
was Katharine, daughter of General the Hon. Henry Carey, 
brother to Lord Falkland, by whom he had two sons, the 
elder of whom. 

Sir John Russell, the ninth baronet, born 1779, died un- 
married and was succeeded by his brother, 

Sir George Russell, the tenth baronet, who dying un- 
married in 1804, the title expired, and the estates devolved 
under his brother's will upon their aunt Mary (mentioned 
under the third baronetcy). This lady died unmarried, and 
was succeeded in her possessions by her cousin Dr. John 
Russell Greenhill of Cottesford Ho. aforesaid. 



Fa))dJy of Fva)\lda)i(L 

Elizabeth, second daughter of the Lady Frances Crom- 
well and Sir John Russell of Chippenham, married Sir 
Thomas Frankland, of Thirkleby, Yorks, hart, eldest son and 
heir of Sir William Frankland by Arabella Bellasyse, sister 



THE FKANKLANb FAMILY. 109 

to Viscount Fauconberg (the liusbaiid of Marj^ Cromwell). 
Consequently Fauconberg was uncle both to the bride and to 
the bridegroom, and so much interest did he feel in this 
alliance that he settled divers estates on Frankland, to which 
was added by bequest the house at Chiswick. Sir Thomas 
Frankland, who represented Thirsk in Parliament and was 
Postmaster- Greneral, is thus notified in 1713. " He is chief 
of a very good family in Yorkshire, with a very good estate. 
His being my lord Faueonberg's nephew and marrying a 
granddaughter of Oliver Cromwell first recommended him to 
King William, who at the Revolution made him Commis- 
sioner of the Excise and some years after Governor of the 
Post-Offiee. By abundance of application he understands 
that office better than any man in England, and is adapted 
for greater matters when the Government shall think fit to 
employ him. The Uueen by reason of his great capacity and 
honesty hath continued him in the office of Postmaster. He 
is a gentleman of a very sweet, easy, affable disposition, — a 
handsome man, of middle stature, towards forty j^ears old." 
By his lady, Elizabeth Ilussell, who died 17'6'6, he had seven 
sons and three daughters, 

I. Thomas, the third baronet, of whom presently. 

II. William, F.R.S., page to Uueen Mary II. His 
children died young. 

III. John, died at Hamburgh. 

IV. Henry, of Mattersea, Notts. ; acquired property in 
India, and died there 1728. By his wife, Mary, daughter of 
Alexander Cross, he had issue, 

1. Charles-Henry, fomih baronet, of whom here- 
after. — 2. Thomas, fifth baronet, of whom hereafter. 
— 3, 4, 5, 6. William, Richard, Robert, Harriet, died 
young or unmarried. — 7. Frederick, a Major in the 
Blues; died at Lisbon, 1752 having mar. Melissa, d. 
of Rev. Mr. Laying, by whom he had a daughter 
mar. to Peniston Powney Esq. She d. 1774, leaving 
a daughter, Melissa. 

V. Richakd, D.C.L. of Jesus Col. Canib. d. 1761. 

VI. Fredekic'k-Meinhardt, barrister at law, M.P. for 
Thirsk, died 1768, having married, first, Anne relict of Adam 
Cardonnel, whose children died young except Anne wife of 
Thomas Lord Pelliam, of whom hereafter. He married, 
secondly, Anne Lumley daughter of Richard first Earl of 
Scarborough, the " Lady Aime Frankland," "\\ho together 
with her sisters Lady Barbara Leigh and Lady Henrietta 
Lumley were, by their mutual friend tlie Countess of Hunt- 
ingdon, brought under the infiuence of Greorge Whitefield's 



110 THE IIOVSE OF CROMWELL. 

preaching. But so higlily did Mr. Franklaiid resent the 
affair that he compelled his wife to quit his house, and re- 
turned her fortune. She survived the heart-breaking ordeal 
only eight months. 

VII. Robert, a trader at Calcutta, slain in the Persian 
Gulf. 

VIII. Elizabeth, married to Roger Talbot of AVoodend, 
Yorks, of whom hereafter. 

IX. Frances (or Mary), married to Thomas Worsley, of 
whom hereafter, 

X. Arabella, died unmarried. 

Sir Thomas Frankland died in 1726 and was succeeded by 
his eldest son. 

Sir Thomas Frankland, the third baronet, M.P, for 
Thirsk in five Parliaments, and a lord of the Admiralty. By 
his wife Diana, daughter of Francis Topham of Agelthorpe, 
he had intov alios, a daughter, Diana, who became Countess 
to George-Henry Lee, Earl of Lichfield ; and had this union 
proved prolific, the oft'spring would have combined the blood 
of Cromwell and of the King, for the Earl of Lichfield was 
the grandson of Charlotte Fitz-Roy, a daughter of Charles 
II. by Barbara Villiers. At Sir Thomas's death in 1717 the 
title passed to his nephew, 

Sir Charles-Henry Frankland, the fomih baronet, 
born in Bengal in 1716, at the time of his father's residence 
there as Governor of the East India Company's factory. 
Although by that father's death he inherited a considerable 
fortune, yet the lucrative post of Collector in the port of 
Boston in New England, which he obtained through the 
Duke of Newcastle, had sufficient attractions to induce him 
to make that colony the place of his residence for the greater 
part of his after life. Pie went over there in 1741 at the age 
of twenty five ; soon after which, while on a visit of inspec- 
tion to the neighbomTiig sea-port of Marblehead where the 
home Government had resolved to erect a fortification, he met 
the young woman whose fascinations were destined to give that 
colouring to his history of which more than one writer of 
American romance has availed himself. This was the cele- 
brated Agnes Surriage, then sixteen years of age, — of obscure 
birth, being the daughter of a fisherman, but gifted with the 
heritage of dazzling beauty. Her mother, it is true, had a 
nominal claim to one seventh part of a vast tract of land in 
Maine, which fell to her on the death of her father Richard 
Pierce of New-Harbour one of the sharers in what was long- 
known and litigated as '• the Brown right," (the title to which 
seventh part, Sir 0. H. Frankland subsequently purchased 



DESCENDANTS OF FRANCES flROMWELL. Ill 

of the widow SiuTiage for £50,) and it must have been this 
circumstance which led Mark Noble and the other genealo- 
gists_ to give the name of Agnes Brown instead of Agnes 
jSurriage as_ Frankland's wife. But whatever the prospects 
in Maine might be worth, the daughter had received no edu- 
cation, and she was accordingly placed for the present under 
the tutelage and protection of Edward Holyoake the Puritan 
minister of the place. 

Frankland, whose tastes were those of a general dilettante, 
but foimd their best expression in architecture and horticul- 
ture, purchased an estate in the subm-ban village of Hopkin- 
ton, and erected a vast and classic mansion, w^hich for some 
years became the scene of lawless revelry, greatly to the 
scandal of the old fashioned Pm-itanism of Boston, but 
receiving little check from the Episcopal Mission-house which 
had also located itself in Hopkinton, the class of men sent 
out in those days for the " Propagation of the Grospel in 
foreign parts, " seldom displaying zeal in any other direction 
than in the checking of the advance of Nonconformity in the 
colonies. 

At Boston meanwhile distinguished visitors were ever com- 
ing and going, and Gfarden-Com^t-House reflected in some 
small measui^e the lustre of St. James. One day, his brother, 
Captain (afterwards Admiral,) Thomas Frankland sailed into 
port, in command of the Hose frigate. Perhaps he did so 
frequently, for he was guarding the coast fi^om Spanish 
pirates, of which more hereafter. The Rose was an old ship. 
In 1686 she had brought out under Captain George, what 
the New Englanders deemed a very unw^elcome freight, in 
the person of Eobert Eatcliffe the first Episcopal minister of 
Boston. The Bostonians had yet to learn that the Anghcan 
domino might cover one of their best friends, and that George 
Whitefield when he shook oft the moral effeminacies of 
priestism and stood in his essential manhood, was worthy to 
be a leader of other men. This brings us in face of the most 
stirring event which occurred in Boston during the Frank- 
land residency ; when, meagerly sustained by land forces from 
the mother-coimtry, 3000 New Englanders undertook to 
snatch fi-om the French Louisburgh the capital of Cape 
Breton, a position so strong that it had acquii-ed the title of 
the Dimku'k of America. They chose as their captain 
William Pepperel a private gentleman of Cornish descent, 
one in whom, says Lord Mahon, courage and sagacity supplied 
the place of military skill. Pie was moreover a great friund 
of George Whitefield. The march of warriors from a New 
England prayer-meeting to storm the French lines is not the 



il2 THE 1I0U8E OF (koMWELL. 

aspect under which this expedition is ordinarily represented, 
either by Lord Mahon or otlier fasldonable historians. A 
narrative from the evangelist himself ma}' therefore form a 
suggestive variety, and not unaptly be termed " the secret 
history of the Cape Breton affair." Writing to a lady-friend 
at home, 29 July 1745, he says — 

" You have now heard of the Cape Breton expedition, 
Avhich was carried on and finished with the greatest secrecy 
and expedition here, before it could be scarcely known to you 
at home. Worthy Colonel Pepperel was fixed upon to com- 
mand. The day before he accepted the commission he pur- 
posed to dine with me to ask my advice. I told him I hoped 
if he did undertake it he would beg of the Lord God of 
armies to give him a single eye ; — that the means pro})Osed 
to take Louisbiu'gh were, in the eye of human reason, no 
more adequate to the end than the somiding of rams' horns 
to blow down Jericho ; — that the eyes of all would be upon 
him ; and if he should not succeed in the enterjjrise, the 
widows and orphans of the slain soldiers would be like lions 
robbed of their wheli)s ; but if it pleased God to give him 
success, envy woidd not suffer him to take the glor}- ; 
and therefore he should take great care that his views were 
disinterested ; and then I doubted not, if Providence really 
called him, he would find his strength proportioned to his day 
and would return more than conqueror. He thanked me ; 
and his lady having given her free consent, he commenced 
General. The sound now was. To arms, To arms. New 
recruits were eagerly sought after ; and my worthy friend 

Mr. S was appointed one of the Commissaries. He told 

me he was preparing the flag, and that I must give him a 
motto ; and that the people must know it too. I absolutely 
refused, urging that it would be acting out of character. He 
replied that the expedition he believed was of God ; and that 
,if I did not encourage it, many of the serious people would 
not enlist. As I still refused, he desired me to consider and 
sleep upon it, and to give him my answer in the morning. I 
retii'cd, I prayed, I slept ; and upon his renewing his request 
in the morning I told him that since he was so m-gent and as 
I did not know but Divine Providence might intend to give 
us Louisbm'gh, therefore he might take this motto, " Nii, 
DESPERANDUM Christo i)ttc;e." Upou this great numbers 
enlisted, and before their embarkation the Officers desired me 
to give them a sermon." 

I'epperel indeed was anxious to carry Whitefield with them 
as Chaplain, but he elected to remain behind in Boston and 
stir up the people to pray for his success. 



THK FliAXKI.AiM) KAMIl.V. lXr3 

*' Tlirough Divine grace I was eiialjl(3(l t) porsist in this 
practice for some weeks ; but at last news arrived that the 
case was desperate. Letter upon letter came from one Officer 
and another, to those who planned the expedition but did not 
know the strength of the fortress. I smiled, and told my 

friends that I believed now we should have Louisburgh, 

that all having confessed their helplessness, God would now 
reveal His arm, and make our extremity His opportunity. I 
was not disappointed of my hope ; for one day, having taken 
a weeping leave of dear Boston, and being about to preacli a 
few miles out of the town, news was brought that Louis- 
burgh was taken. Numbers flocked with great joy from all 
quarters ; and I immediately preached to them a thanks- 
giving sermon from these words. 'By this I know that thou 
fayourest me since thou hast not permitted mine enemies to 
triumph over me.' " 

Here then we have a narrative cast in the true Cromwellian 
type ; here we see still operating an element of power against 
wliich, a few years later, the battalions of the Mother- Country 
dashed in vain and broke into ruin. Pepperel was rewarded 
with a baronetcy for his valour, but his followers had little 
for which to thank the Home authorities. The ignominious 
war which was brought to a close by the Peace of Aix la 
Chapelle in 1748 can hardly be said to have had more than 
one redeeming feature, and that one feature was the capture 
of Cape Breton by the colonists. But as the provisions of 
that peace stipulated for the mutual surrender of all conquests 
made during the war, the Bostonians had the mortification of 
witnessing the re-delivery of Cape Breton into the hands of 
the French. _ If not designed to irritate them, it was at least 
liolding their patriotic allegiance very cheap. But Mr. 
Frankland's personal history must be now resumed. 

Soon_ after the baronetcy fell to him by the death of his 
uncle Sir Thomas, he was called home to carry on a suit at 
law, in which the will of this uncle bequeathing the entire 
estate at Thirkleby to his lady was contested The Genf/c- 
mmi's 3Ia(jazine thus reports the facts. — " 4 June, 1754. A 
cause between Sii' Henry Frankland, plaintiff, and the lady of 
the late Sir Thomas, defendant, was tried in the Court of 
King's Bench by a special jury. The subject of litigation was 
a will of Sir Thomas, suspected to be made when he was not 
of sound mind; and it appeared that he had made three, — one 
in 1741, another in 1744, and a third in 1746. In the first 
only a slender provision was made for his lady, by the second 
this family estate in Yorkshire of £2,000 per annum was 
given her for her life, and by the thii-d the whole estate real and 



114 THE HOUSE OF CROMWELL. 

personal was left to be disposed of at her discretion without 
any provision for the heir at law. The jnry after having with- 
drawn for about an hoiu' and a half, set aside the last and 
confirmed the second. In a hearing before the Lord Chancellor 
some time afterwards in relation to the costs, it was decreed 
that the lady should pay them all, both at common law and 
in Chancery." 

On this occasion he was accompanied to England by Agnes 
Surriage ; and on the conclusion of the law affair, they made 
the tour of Europe together and took up a temporary abode in 
Lisbon, furnishing a house there, and joining in the dissi})a- 
tions of that doomed city. This brings us to what Frank- 
land's biographer justly terms the catastrophe and turning 
point of his life. Hitherto he had led the life of a voluptuary 
and a sceptic. Henceforward his career will be that of one 
stunned and stricken down into modesty and repentance. 

The first of November 1755 will ever be a memorable 
crisis in the kosmocal annals of Europe and especially of 
Lisbon. In that city which then contained nearly a quarter 
of a million of inhabitants, a brilliant morning sun was 
shining on the papal festivities of All Saints Day. At eleven 
o'clock the manipulation of high mass at thirty churches was 
quenched in universal collapse. The earthquake was sensibly 
felt all over western Europe, northern Africa, and even in 
the West Indies ; but the catastrophe wrought its climax in 
Lisbon, where the convulsed bed of the Tagus lifted for some 
minutes all its shipping high and dry, to be overwhelmed im- 
mediately after by a refluent rush of waters which fairly 
turned the harbour- quay bottom upwards and then swallowed 
it out of sight. Of the thousands of fugitives who had 
sought safety at that spot and who thus went down quick 
into Hades, not a corpse ever rose to the surface. The loss 
of human life in the city was estimated at nearly 30,000, and 
the loss of property at £95,000,000. Sir Henry Frankland, 
attired in Court dress and in company with a lady, was on 
his way to one of the church spectacles, in a carriage and 
pair, when his vehicle was crushed by falling ruins and the 
horses instantly killed. While thus entombed, his companion 
in her frantic despair seized his arm with her teeth and tore 
away a portion of the flesh. What became of her is not 
stated. As for Frankland himself, the dark horrors of the 
hour brought the delinquencies of his past life into startling 
review, and "wrung from him vows of total reformation of life 
and ample retribution to all whom he had ever injm-ed, if 
deliverance were now vouchsafed to him, — vows which there is 
good reason to believe he never forgot. Meanwhile his de- 



AGNES SURKIAGE. 115 

voted Agnes was traversing the ruined streets in search of 
him ; and recognizing at last the plaintive voice which issued 
from his living tomb, she accomplished his deliverance in no 
long time by lavish rewards distributed to her assistants. 
His wounds being dressed, he was conveyed to Belem a 
suburb of Lisbon, where his first action on recovery was to 
formalize his marriage with his deliverer, by the hands of a 
Romish priest. As his own house in Lisbon was wrecked, it 
was resolved at once to embark for England ; and on board 
ship the union was again ratified by the services of an An- 
glican clergpnan. On landing, the now sobered and chas- 
tened couple proceeded to the family seat, where Agnes was 
affectionately welcomed by her mother in law. 

Although Sir Henry two years later was formally ap- 
pointed to the office of Consul-general at Lisbon, the attrac- 
tions of Hopkinton again and again induced him and his 
lady to be backwards and forwards across the Atlantic ; till 
his health breaking down prematurely compelled him to 
retire to Bath, where he died in 1768, aged fifty one years. 
Ho was buried in the church of the neighbouring village of 
Weston, where his epitaph may be seen against the wall of 
the nave. The above history of his life has been mainly de- 
rived from a modern American work entitled " Sir C/tarlca 
Ilriir// Frankhoid, Ixirt. or Bodoii in the Colonial Times," by 
Elias Nason, M.A. Albany N. Y. 1865. The writer, though 
a moralist of genuine New England textm-e, makes no con- 
cealment of his admiration for the courtly refinement of 
Boston society under the old regime ; while the portrait he 
draws of his heroine not imsuccessfuUy challenges a large 
measure of sympathy for what liis own enthusiasm would 
fain elevate into a romance. In the construction of his book 
he was greatly assisted by Miss Isabella Jane Whinj^ates of 
Cheltenham, who moreover sent him a portrait of her great- 
uncle ; and in reference to his burial at Weston made the 
following communication in July 1859. — " It is a very sin- 
gular circumstance that the tomb of Sir Henry Frankland 
has been discovered by a mere accident by our cousin Captain 
Frankland, R.N. who a few weeks since went to visitthe tomb 
of a sister who liesbmied at Weston Church in the vicinity of 
Bath. While there, he stumbled against the tomb of Sir 
Henry, not knowing in the least that his great-uncle was 
buried there. He found that the monumental inscri]ition 
was placed so very high against the wall in the nave of the 
church that it could not be well decyphered ; and therefore 
requested that a copy might be made for him, which is the 
same I now send you." 



ii6 



THE HOUSE or CROMWELL. 



" To the memory of Sir Charles-Hemy Frankland of 
Thirkleby, Co. York, bart. Consul-general for many years at 
Lisbon, from whence he came in hopes of recovery from a 
bad state of health to Bath, where after a tedious and painful 
illness sustained with the patience and resignation becoming 
a Christian, he died, 11 January 1768 in the fifty second year 
of his life, without issue ; and at his own desire he lies buried 
in this chm-ch. This monument is erected by his affectionate 
widow Agnes Lady Frankland." 

On the death of her husband. Lady Frankland, in company 
with Henry Cromwell, returned to the Hopkinton estate, and 
there she cherished her relatives and maintained a magnificent 
style of housekeeping till the breaking out of the war of 
Independence in 1775. As the rich widow of a prominent 
ofiicer of the Crown her solitary position was felt to be no 
longer tenable, and accordingly she and Henry took refuge 
in Boston then occupied by British troops. From the win- 
dows of her house in Grarden Com-t Street she witnessed with 
many others the storming of Bmikers Hill, and afterwards 
busied herself in succom-ing the wounded men as they were 
brought in from the bloody field. The last of her many 
voyages was then carried into efi:ect, the succeeding seven 
years of her life being spent in old England among the 
members of the Frankland family till her removal to Chi- 
chester on becoming the wife of John Drew a banker of that 
city, — the same place where Henry Cromwell also appears to 
have settled. She died in the com'se of the next year from 
inflammation of the lungs, at the age of fifty seven, in 1783, 
and was bmied at^ Chichester. Her American biographer, mio 
■more catalogues her qualifications thus. 

" Eaised from obscurity to affluence and high position in 
society, Lady Frankland's native good sense enabled her to 
fulfil the duties of her station with superior ability. Her 
majestic gait, her dark and lustrous eye commanded the 
admiration of the beholder ; her clear and melodious voice, 
her endearing smile, entranced his heart. Her weight at the 
age of thirty five was about 138 lbs. Her chief amusements 
were reading, riding on horseback, music, and the culture of 
flowers. She was a communicant of the Church of England ; 
and in later life was highly res]^)ected and esteemed by the 
noble family into which she had married." 

Captain Henry Cromwell, whose name has occasionally 
cropped up in the alcove narrative, was born in 1741 the first 
year of his father Su' Charles Henry Frankland's residence 
in New England. At the age of fifteen he commenced his 
naval career by joining his Majesty's ship SHceesa, Cap \ 



ADMIRAL HEXRY CROMWELL. 117 

Eouse, then lying in Casoo Bay, yet found or made frequent 
occasions for visiting and travelling about with his father ;— 
Lady Frankland on her part ever elierishing a fond regard 
for him, though she was not his mother. He Avas also held 
in high esteem in the Navy, where, holding the rank of 
Captain, he was present with Admiral Kempenfelt in the 
gallant action off the French coast 14 Nov. 1781. But 
though he had no objection to fight the French, he resolved 
never to draw his sword against his native country, and 
accordingly retired into private life, and was living with his 
family in Chichester in England in 1796. Another motive 
probably operating in the same direction may have been gra- 
titude for the forbearance which the United States exercised 
in respect of his estate of Hopkinton devised to him by his 
father. The Confiscation Commissioners finding that various 
encumbrances rested on it in favour of Lady Frankland's 
New England relations, besides sundry slaves, reported in 
favour of its liberation, and Mr. Cromwell therefore was 
allowed to retain possession, till he sold the place in 179:3 to 
Dr. Timothy Shepherd of Sherbm^ne for £950. Such is the 
American account; and Mr. Cromwell's objection to bear 
arms against that country may have been well understood in 
England ; yet it is also true that in the promotion list for 
1801 Hemy Cromwell Esq. becomes Eear Admiral of the 
Blue, and in 1805 he is Eear Admiral of the Eed. A few 
words on the subsequent history of the Hopkinton mansion 
and we shall have done. ' 

On Sir Charles Henry Frankland's first retm-n thither 
after the Lisbon tragedy, he had carried with him the scarlet 
court-cbess which retained the marks of the agony of the 
young womanburied with himself in the ruins, together with 
some other relics of the catastrophe. These he huno- alono- 
the tapestried walls of one of the chambers ; and it was hi's 
practice on every anniversary of tlie event to shut himself up 
in this room, to close the shutters, and in darkness and silence 
to spend the hours in fasting and prayer. The scenes of the 
Earthquake were recalled to mind, thanksgiving rendered for 
bodily and spiritual deliverance, and vows of faithfulness to 
Agnes and to God renewed. 

" There huug the rapier blade he wore, 
Bent in its flatten 'd sheath. 
The coat the shrieking woman tore 
Caught in her clenching teeth." 

Ballad of Afines. 

In addition to traditions of this nature founded more or 



118 THE HOUSE or CROMWELL. 

less on facts, sundry gliost stories came to be associated witli 
the spot. Consequently on the appearance in 1843 of William 
Lincoln's ''^ Legend of New EnglaniV and more recently of 
the " Ballad of Agues " by Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, it 
was natural that a desire should be awakened to know the 
real history of the parties concerned. This desire Mr. Elias 
Nason, the biographer whom we have followed, had a strong- 
motive for resolving to satisfy. The Hopkinton estate, 
reduced however to the dimension of 100 acres, was now in 
fact his own property. Unluckily the mansion was burnt 
down the first year after his obtaining possession, but he built 
another as closely resembling the original as possible, and 
then set about re-kindling the historic life of the old inhabi- 
tants. And hence arose the handsomely printed octavo of 
" 81)' Charles Henry Frankland^ hart, or Boston in the Colonial 
Times.'" Conjuring anew the romance which to his boyish 
imagination had flooded the spot, our author in the following 
concluding passage snatches a final glance at a drama which 
]iad lost none of its charms. 

" When I revisited that venerable mansion, from which the 
sacred remains of its long last occupant had just been carried 
to the grave, [the widow of Dr. Shepherd aforesaid, who died 
here at the age of 87], as I walked through the lonely and 
silent rooms, observed the tapestry loosely hanging from the 
deserted walls, the columns of the capacious but now empty 
hall ; as I passed through ' the haunted chamber,'' where the 
spoils of the Lisbon earthquake used to hang, and stood upon 
the very floor on which the English baronet had so often knelt 
in penile ace and prayer; as I recalled to memory the fair 
maid of Marblehead and her romantic story ; as with busy 
fancy I re-peopled the whole scene with forms of beauty and 
intelligence, listened to the sounds of the merry viol, of song, 
of feasting, and of revelry ; saw Frankland, Agnes, Harry 
Cromwell, Isaac Surriage, Dupee, Villiers, the Prices, Wilsons, 
Valentines, Irvings, — groom, footman, waiter, valet, page, — 
Robert, Hannah, and Dinah, [three blacks] all alive before 
me ; — and as I then paused and looked again, and saw the 
rooms deserted and the shades of evening falling, and heard 
no sound save the echoes of my own solitary footsteps, I con- 
fess that it required but little effort of the imagination to 
believe that invisible spirits were still hovering around me, 
and that the weird fancies of the boy had become realities to 
the man." At this point the Professor's reverie is checked by 
the whistle of the locomotive screaming through the valley of 
Magunco ; and the moral exhales in a salutation dii'ected to 
America's exalted destiny. 



ADMIRAL KRANKLAND. 119 

Sir Thomas Frankland, who on tlie death in 1768 of his 
brother Sir Charles-Henry Frankland, succeeded as fifth 
baronet, was already known as a naval Officer of distinction. 
He was now holding the rank of Admiral of the Red, and he 
eventually attained to the White. The two principal actions 
Avhich brought him into notice were performed when he was 
a very young man. He was only twenty two when he ob- 
tained the command of the Rose frigate, appointed to carry 
out to the Bahamas Mr. Tinker the new Grovernor of those 
islands. Remaining on that station as a check to the Spanish 
marauders termed " guarda-costas," he had the good fortune 
to fall in with one of them soon after it had made three 
prizes ; this was in June 1742. The guarda-costa, supported 
by two of her prizes, fought the English frigate for nearly 
three hours ; till the prizes thinking it more prudent to stand 
off, the two principal combatants had a running fight all to 
themselves. In the course of another hour the Spanish colours 
were hauled down, in opposition to their captain's orders; and 
Frankland, having shifted his prisoners with all possible speed, 
went in pui'suit of the three flying prizes. In the end they 
were all gathered and carried into Carolina, when it became 
apparent why the Spanish Captain had maintained so ob- 
stinate a fight. He tm^ned out to be the notorious Fandino who 
some years j)reviously had cut off the ear of Captain Jenkins. 
Frankland sharing in the general indignation which that ac- 
tion had aroused throughout England, and regarding his 
prisoner as one who merited nothing short of a pirate's doom, 
refused to release him on parole or to exchange him, and ac- 
cordingly shipped him off to be judged in England. 

This story of Jenkins's mutilation, or as Edmund Burke 
used to style it " the fable of Jenkins's ear," it may be as well 
to state, had been got up after lying dormant for seven years, 
and was paraded in the House of Commons at a time when 
the Opposition were endeavoring to force Walpole's Govern- 
ment into a war with Spain. Robert Jenkins a Scottish 
skipper had been boarded near Jamaica, his cargo ransacked, 
and himself maltreated as aforesaid ; the Spaniard adding the 
fm-ther indignity of throwing the ear in his face and telling 
him to carry it to his King. It was true enough that Jenkins 
had lost an ear, no one knew on what account, and he always 
carried it about with him wrapped in cotton ready for exhibi- 
tion. It was equally true that Spanish colonists had been 
credited time out of mind with far worse barbarities towards 
their English rivals. But Jenkins's narrative being just the 
article then in demand, effectually served the cause of the 
war advocates, and a scrambling contest with Spain ensued of 



120 THE HOUSE OF CROMWELL. 

several years duration, which was principally signalized hy 
the mutual captui'e of merchant sliips. What is more to our 
purpose, the fable of Jenkins's ear indirectly served to advance 
the fortunes of Captain Frankland. 

He continued some years longer on the same station guard- 
ing the newly formed settlements of Georgia and Carolina ; 
and it was at this period, viz. in 1743, that he married Sarah 
Rhett, daughter of the Chief Justice and Governor of South 
Carolina, hy whom he had five sons and eight daughters. 
Miss Ehett was a highly gifted woman; and it was the 
opinion of the late Sir Thomas Frankland Lewis that from 
her were derived those powers of understanding which dis- 
tino'uished the next generation of Franklands. At the same 
time it was observed that her chikben as they grew up were 
endowed with natures more gentle and easy than would 
ordinarily be regarded as characteristic of the Cromwellian 
type. Immediately after his marriage Captain Frankland 
sailed into Boston harbour to pay a visit to his brother Sir 
Charles Henry Frankland. See above at page 110. The 
poet of the Boston Ereiiing Post thereupon saluted his arrival 
in the following ode, in which the uprising spirit of New 
England may be plainly detected, while inviting their dis- 
tinguished visitor to justify his Cromwellian descent. 



To Captain Frankhuul Commander of Ms Majesty^ Shiji 

Rose. 

From peaceful solitude and calm retreat, 

I now and then look out upon the great ; 

Praise where 'tis due I'll give, — no servile tool 

Of honourable knave or reverend fool ; 

Surplice or red coat both alike to me ; 

Let him that wears them great and worthy be. 

Whether a coward in the camp or port 

Traitor in want, or traitor in the Court, 

A like reward their cowardice deserves, 

Alike their treachery, he who eats or starves ; 

Or brave by land, or hero on the main, 

A like respect their courage should sustain. 

Then let me lisp thy name, thy praise rehearse, 

Though in weak numbers and in feeble verse ; 

Though faint the whisper when the thunder roars ; 

And speak thee great through all Hispania's shores. 

Still safe in port, the red-coat chief may scare, 

Dread of the boys, and favourite of the fair 

Still shudder at the dangers of the deep, 

To arms an enemy, but a friend to sleep, 

We see thee Frankland dreadful o'er the Main 

Not terrible to children, but to Spain. 



ADMIRAL FRANK LAND, 121 

With thee thy dawning beams of glory play, 
And triumph in the jirospect of the day. 
Oh, let the kindling spark, the glowing fire 
Yonr generons soul inflame as once your SiRE. 
With him the schemes of tyranny oppose, 
And love your country as you hate her foes. 

lu the following year while cruising of! the north side of 
Cuba, Captain Franklancl found himself one dark December 
morning under the shadow of a large Spanish ship, the 
Couccpfioii, crowded with soldiers for Ilavannah. He kept 
his wind till daybreak, and at seven began an engagement 
which lasted five hoiu-s, with a fresh gale and a heavy sea. 
Three or fom' times did he put himself alongside the enemy 
before she would strike, and when the combat ceased at half 
past twelve, it was found that she had nearly a hundred men 
killed outright. The Rose on the other hand, which went into 
action with only a hundred and seventy seven men and boys, 
had five killed, besides the wounded. The prize was carried 
into South Carolina, and found to contain 310,000 pieces of 
eight and 5,000 oz. gold in passengers' money. 

On the termination of the war in 1748, our sea-rover came 
home and took his place in Parliament for the family borough 
of Thirsk. After six years of inaction, on being appointed 
Commodore on the Antigua station, he again sailed for the 
West ; but this portion of his career was principally signalised 
by an ignominious altercation with his predecessor Commo- 
dore Pye who neglected to strike his broad pendant at the 
moment of Frankland's arrival, into the merits of which we 
need not enter. His active work in fact was well nigh com- 
pleted. He was now the reeipiant of the fast gathering 
honours which his early valom' had won, and naturally 
enough increasingly sensitive to anything like professional 
irregularity or personal neglect. In the following year 1756, 
he was advanced to be Pear Admiral of the Blue, progressively 
rising, as already stated. In his capacity of Admiral of the 
Ped he acted as one of the supporters of the canopy at the 
funeral of the Duke of York, brother to George III, who 
died at Monaco in 1767. He succeeded to his brother's 
baronetcy soon afterwards ; but, beyond occasional attendance 
in the House as member for Thirsk, he took no fm^ther part 
in public affairs; and died at Bath in 1781 in his sixty 
seventh year. 

Admiral Frankland always nursed with pardonable pride 
the fact of his descent from the Protector Oliver ; and he 
seems to have entertained the further belief tliat he resembled 
him in person. It is certain that he was pleased when 



122 THE IIOUSB OF CROMWEM^. 

visitors recognized, as lie grew old. his possession of what was 
termed " Oliver's lock." Such was the statement made by 
his daughter Anne to her son the late Sir Thomas Frankland 
Lewis. The portrait of the Protector preserved by the Lewis 
family at Harpton Court has this peculiarity distinctly 
defined, and is in all probability the very same wherein the 
old gentleman was in the habit of discovering his own fea- 
tm-es. The forehead is bald, and on the top of the head is a 
circle of baldness with a lock of grey hair in the middle, 
farther back on the head and not so thick as the tuft usually 
painted on the front of the heads representing Time. Sir 
Thomas Frankland Lewis while penning the above in 1848 
stated moreover that a very good likeness of the Admiral 
might be seen in Miss Whinyates' house at Cheltenham, and 
that possibly there was another at Thirkleby. [Dorset Villa 
the seat of the Whinyates at Cheltenham now contains the 
Admiral's pictui-e.] Grrainger in his Biographical Dictionary 
states that at Sir Thomas Frankland's house in Old Bond 
Street there was a picture of Oliver, with a crown painted 
over the coat of arms, Dessau, he tells us, had carried this 
picture to Portugal, where it was purchased by Sir Thomas 
Frankland. This explains how the Admiral got possession 
of it. The Admiral's surviving children were as follows. 

I. Thomas, the sixth baronet, of whom presently. 

II. William, who died unmarried in 1816. He was a 
barrister at law, attending the northern circuit, — became 
Attorney-general of the Isle of Man, — Lieutenant-colonel of 
the North York Militia, — M.P. for Thirsk, — and a lord of the 
Admiralty under Lord Grrenville's administration in 1806. 
He is often named in the memoirs of Romilly and Macintosh ; 
and it was thought by the late Sir Thomas Frankland Lewis 
that of all Oliver's descendants with whom he had come in 
contact, William Frankland was the ablest and best informed, 
always excepting the late Earl of Clarendon. But for some 
orio-inal traits of fancy, which certain of his friends deemed 
eccentric, it was generally felt that he might have been one of 
the leading thinkers of his day. During the Short Peace, he 
accompanied his friend Sir James Macintosh to Paris, when 
an introduction to the First Consul was arranged, Buonaparte 
being desirous of offering his personal compliments to Sir 
James as the author of the Vindieia' GaUicoe. But some mis- 
take in names occurring, Buonaparte advanced towards the 
wrong man and began pouring into Mr. Frankland's ear those 
praises for philanthropy and philosophical acumen which were 
intended for his friend. What completed Mr. Frankland's 
embarrasment was that his defective French disabled him from 



DESCENDANTS OF FRANCES (JROMWELh. 123 

correcting the error. When it came to Macintosh's turn to 
hold colloquy with the great man, the conversation dropped 
down to the conventional topics current at Courts, — unless 
we except the sarcastic question which Napoleon is said to 
have proposed not only to Macintosh but to Erskine, whether 
cither of them had ever been Lord Mayor of London. 

III. EoGER, Canon-residentiary of Wells, rector of Yar- 
lington and vicar of Dulvington, both in Somerset ; died in 
1826. Like his brother William he was a man of consider- 
able mental ability. By his wife Katharine daughter of John 
seventh Lord Colvillo of Culross and sister to Vice Admiral 
Lord Colville, he had twelve children. 

1. Frederick- William, the eighth baronet, of whom 
hereafter. 

2. Rear Admiral Edward- Augustus, born 1704, 
entered the sea-service as midshipman on board the 
Repulse ; for some time he was secretary to his cousin 
Commander Bowles on the South American station ; — 
died unmarried at Florence in 1862. 

3. Emma, mar. W. Chaplin Esq. of the Madi'as 
civil service ; — died at Ramsgate, 1825. 

4. Admiral Charles Colville, — began as midship- 
man in the Arjidloii commanded by his cousin Capt. 
William Bowles, who made him lieutenant into the 
A)ii/ron)aehe. After attaining the rank of Commander 
he became an extensive traveller in Europe and Asia 
Minor, the narratives of which, illustrated by sketches, 
were published in 1827 and 1832. He died unmar- 
ried at Bath in 1876 aged seventy nine. 

0. Matilda, died at Bath in 1819, having in the pre- 
vious year mar. Lieut. Col. W. Robison 24th foot. 

6. George, Lieut. 6'5th foot, — died in Van Dieman's 
land, 1838. In 1822 he had mar. Anne, d. of 
Tho. Mason Esq. and had issue, — 1, Sophia Katharine, 
twice married, — 2, Greorgina-Anne, mar. J. T. Francis 
Esq. — 3, Augustus Charles, killed in 1857 at the 
battle of Kooshab. His wife was Clara, d. of H. 
Williams, Esq. 

7. Katharine-Henrietta, mar. to Mr. Carey, still 
living 1878. 

8. Octavia, mar. to Mr. Montgomery, died 1868 
aged sixty two. 

9. Louisa, died in childhood, 1814. 

10. Arthm^ bore the title of Colonial Aid de camp 
at the Mam'itius. He was a Captain in the Army, 
and died unmarried, 1843, 



124 THK llOl^SK OF (KOMWKLL. 

11. Sophia, died imm. at Nice in 1837. 

12. Albert -lleniy, d. infant. 

IV. Maky, eldest daughter of Admiral Frankland, married 
in 1778 Sir Boyle Koche, hart, of I'ermoy in Ireland, grand- 
son of Uominick lioche a partizan of James II. who made 
him Viscount Cahervahalla, a dignity which the Grovernment 
of William III. of com-se ignored. At the age of nineteen 
young Mr. lloche was serving in America as a Lieutenant in 
the 27th Foot during the Seven Years' war with France. 
While on duty with a detachment scouring a woody part of 
Canada, he was overpowered by a party of Indians in the 
pay of France, and, together with Captain (afterwards 
General) Pringle (jf the same regiment, condemned to die by 
torture. The two young men owed their deliverance to the 
intercession of some of the women of the tribe, and remained 
amongst them as adopted children of their community till 
handed over to the Fi'ench who retained them as pi-isoners of 
war till the Peace. Mr. lloche returned to Ireland ; but the 
military element being now less in demand, he became, 
through the influence of the Earl of Buckinghamshire then 
Viceroy, gentleman-usher or master of the ceremonies to the 
castle of Dublin : he also obtained a knighthood and a seat 
in the Irish Parliament. In 1778 he repaired to the York- 
shire residence of the Franklands to solicit the hand of the 
eldest daughter of that house whom lie had met at Bath 
during the previous year. lie was now forty one yeai-s of 
age, a man of graceful and commanding carriage, known and 
recognized in Dublin as an important representative of the 
Protestant Grovernment, the trusted confidant of half a dozen 
Lord-Lieutenants in succession, and one who by a natm^al 
outflow of humom' and downright good nature contrived to 
be popular both at the Castle and among the Catholic popu- 
lation. He had, it is true, accumulated no fortune, but he 
carried with him his knightly spurs, and a character for hos- 
pitality, unblemished integrity, and exuberant corn-age. The 
game nevertheless was not to be run down at the first brush, 
and it was not till Lady Frankland made common cause with 
the lovers that the old Admiral yielded the point. But then 
he did so, says the biographer, " with the most fatheiiy and 
generous consideration," settling i^IUUO on his dear daughter 
before giving her away in the parish church of Spayforth. 
Sir Boyle lloche carried her oft' in trimiiph to Lublin, nor 
was he ever weary of recalling and parading . the successful 
issue of the campaign. Soon after this, his public services 
were rewarded by a permanent pension of £200 a year (even- 
tually transferred to his lady ;) and the Duke of Portland on 



SIR HOYI.E ROCIIK. 120 

becoming Viuevoy procTirod him the further Iionoiir of a 
l)!iv()iietcy. The protracted sil tings of tlie Irish Parliament 
while the Union Act was debating-, seriously damaged his 
health ; that event moreover unseated him at tlie Castle ; but 
an increased retiring pension furnished a suthcieut solatium, 
and left him and his wife leisiu-e to pay more frequent visits 
to England. 

With dauntless personal courage Su- Boyle Roche combined 
the character of a peace-maker, preventing in the course of 
his Parliamentary career many a duel, and ever ready, in 
defence of law and order, to place his person at the mercy of 
a howling mob. His obituary in the GontloiKDi'H Magazine 
says that " after obtaining a seat in Parliament he was 
always in his place, and could at any moment change the 
temper of the House by a speech fraught with good humour 
and delivered with so much drollery that the most angry 
debate has often been concluded with peals of laughter." A 
more modern writer observes that " Sir Boyle seems to have 
been in his day a prototj^pe of Sii- Joseph Yorke or Mr. 
Bernal Osborne. By his being made the mouthpiece of all 
the absurdities that have ever been invented in the wa_y of 
Irish bulls or blunders, his true merits are degraded. This 
charge of u.nparalleled blundering was the way by which 
perhaps his contemporaries were accustomed to revenge them- 
selves for the jokes he passed upon them ; but its unfairness 
and want of truth were expressly noticed at the time of his 
death, when it was mentioned that " it has not been more 
common to attribute other men's jests to Joe Miller than 
every Irish blunder to the worthy baronet." Ab/c.s and 
Queries, 4 May, 1872. Under these circumstances it would 
be folly to catalogue the various jokes recorded against him ; 
though indeed they are generally of a good-natm-ed com- 
plexion ; — as when for example he told his brethren of the 
House, that " if, dming the recess, any of the honom-able 
Members should c(mie within a mile of his residence, he 
trusted the}^ Avould have the goodness to stop there." Likely 
enough, this also is second-hand. He figm'es occasionally in 
that humorous work, the Autobiography of Sir Jona/i Barring- 
ton, who describes him as " a fine bluff soldier-like gentle- 
man, perfectly well-bred in all his habits. He had a claim 
to the title of Fermoy, which however he never jjursued ; and 
was brother to the famous Tiger Poche, who fought some 
desperate duel abroad, and was near being hanged for it. Sir 
Boyle's lady, who was a Jjas bleu, prematm-ely injui'od his 
capacity it was said by forcing him to read Gibbon's Decline 
and Fall of the Roman Empire, whereat he was cruell}' pu;izled 
without being in the lenst degree amused." 



126 THE HOUSE OF CKOMWELL. 

The death of *' this most benevolent of human beings" as 
that wife styles him, took place 4 June 1807 the birthday of 
King Greorge III. Sir Boyle being then seventy years of age ; 
soon after which his widow went to London to pay a final 
visit to her aged mother the dowager Lady Frankland, who 
died six weeks after her arrival. Lady Eoche then went 
back to Ireland and kept a hospitable house in Eccles Street 
for the remainder of her life, which was protracted far into 
the present centiuy . lief erring to the reduction of her income 
through the assimilation of the English and Irish currency, 
she closes her manuscript thus, [always speaking of herself in 
the third person] " Should the hand of reform still further 
reduce her pension she will not only be impoverished herself, 
but her numerous dependants will be turned adrift. Should 
she escape this spoliation, she is not likely to be a bm-den to 
the country long, for she is eighty five years old, and by a 
rheumatic complaint has totally lost the use of her limbs and 
cannot rise from her chair without help, and is under constant 
medical attendance. In her helpless condition she returns 
thanks to Divine Providence for the happiness she has enjoyed 
and for having escaped many evils which thi-eatened her at 
diiferent times, especially in the earlier part of her life. She 
prays for forgiveness of her sins through the merits of her 
Redeemer, and hopes for salvation thi'ough the same merits 
and when it shall please Grod to call her away. In the mean 
time, knowing she ought to be patient under her sufferings, 
kind hearted, and as little troublesome as possible to those 
about her who endeavom* to relieve them ; and particularly 
to her attendant friend and companion Mj-s. Eliza Kenna who 
has lived with her forty six years, and attended Sir Boyle 
during his last illness, being with him at the moment of his 
death." [From a manuscript in the possession of Colonel 
Frederick T. Whinyates of the Eoyal Horse Artillery.] 

V. Sarah, second daughter of Admiral Frankland died 
young. 

VI. Harriet, third daughter died unmarried. 

VII. Anne, fourth daughter became in 1778 second wife 
to John Lewis of Harpton Court, Radnor ; and surviving 
him, married secondly 1811, Eev. Robert Hare of Hurst- 
monceau in Sussex, and died 1842. 



The family of Leu-is. 

By her first marriage the children of Anne Frankland 
were, one son, Thomas Frankland, and two daughters Anne 



DESCENDANTS OF FRANCES CROMWELL. 127 

and Louisa who both died unmarried. Mr. Lewis died in 
1797 and was succeeded by his son, 

,>Ja^^ ^^^'- -^^^^ ^"^ Thomas Franklanj) Lewls, born 
1780, educated at Eton and Christ Church Oxon • Privv 
Councillor and M.P. He had filled a variety of offices before 
he consented, under Lord Grey's administration, to be iilaced 
?^in^i® I'oor-law Commission, the chairmanship of whieh he 
fulfilled with great efficiency from 1884 to 1839. The Eev 
Sidney Smith writing to Sii' WilHam Ilorton in 1835 says — 
" Frankland Lewis is filling his station of King of the Paupers 
extremely well. They have already worked wonders ; but of 
all occupations it must be the most disagreeable " And ae-aiu 
to the same person,— "Our friend Frankland Lewis is gaining 
great and deserved reputation by his administration of the 
i oor-laws, one of the best and boldest measm-es which ever 
emanated from any Government." Sir Thomas died in 
January 18op after only two days illness, having taken a chill 
whilst shooting m very severe weather. His memory is 
cherished as that of a man of straightforward good sense, 
giited with executive talents in public, and with a fine temper 
and generous disposition at home. The present writer has 
good reason to recall with gratitude the free-handed manner 
m which he fm^iished divers copious materials of family his- 
tory ;>s long letters respecting Oliver's descendants betraying 
a geumne interest in the subject, though he thought it but 
proper to record his opinion that among them all there were 
but tew that claimed a biography except the late Earl Claren- 
don. He was not unaware that the career of his own son 
presented another illustrious exception, and he was ready 
enough to accept as the true sons of a hero. Major William 
Nicholas and others who had adorned the two Services The 
patent of Sir Thomas's baronetcy is dated 27 June 1846 lie 
married, first, m 1805, Harriet fourth daughter of Sir George 
Cornewall of Moccas Court, Hereford, by whom he had two 
sons, George Cornewall and Gilbert Frankland. He married 
secondly, m 1839 the daughter of the late John Ashtou Esq ' 
a Captain m the Horse Guards Blue. 

Sir George Cornewall Lewis, second baronet, born 
1806, educated at Eton and at Chi-istchurch Oxon where he 
was first class m classics and second in mathematics in the 
same year. I rom the obscmity of his Middle Temple cham- 
bers he emerged m 1835 into the professional distinction of a 
Government Commissioner, though he did not enter Par- 
liament till the general election of 1847; and Lord John 
Hussell being then m power, Mr. Cornewall Lewis found him- 
self forthwith installed into the office of Secretary to the 



128 TilE HOISE OK CKOMWKLL. 

Board of Control. That Whig Government fell in 1851, and 
Mr. Lewis lost his seat till the death of his father gave him 
the family honour of representing the Eadnor boroughs. His 
return to Parliament was signalized by his appointment to 
the Chancellorship of the Exchequer, and that too at a very 
critical period, clming the War with Russia, when Mr. Glad- 
stone's retirement from the Palmerston Ministry created a void 
which uo one seemed capable of filling. That Sir George 
Lewis shoidd be selected as the fit and proper substitute seems 
to have entered into the calculation neither of friend nor foe. 
During his absence from the House, that post had been filled 
successively by Sir Charles Wood, Benjamin Disraeli, and 
W. E. Gladstone. Creditably to succed to either of the two 
first was within his easy reach. To follow Mr. Gladstone in 
such a department has been described as " an act of heroic 
daring." When Mr. Gladstone had opened his first budget 
in 1853, the pressure for members' seats was enormous. 
Strangers had been waiting for admission from noon ; and 
though he spoke for more than four hom-s, no one moved. 
The next year there was a still greater push, people gathering 
in the Lobby as early as nine in the morning, and Lord 
Brougham being observed under the Gallery for the first time 
since his retreat into the Upper House. But now, under Sir 
George Lewis, though the Crimean War was not yet brought 
to an end, the public interest even in matters of finance 
seemed to he entirely crushed out ; nor could any reason be 
assigned but the unatti-active manner of the speaker. No 
party evinced any curiosity as to what he would propose ; and 
all felt that the weariness of listening to his expositions was 
an ordeal which only his thorough honesty could condone. It 
was Sir George's infirmity of embarassed and feeble utterance 
which constituted the principal obstacle in his official career, 
and it was one which he never overcame. He found it far 
easier to vindicate his own independence, and to dissipate the 
impression which at first prevailed among outsiders that he 
was the mere exponent of Lord Palmerston 's schemes. With 
equanimity and fortitude he wrought out for himself a palp- 
able individuality, and for his measm-es a fair- proportion of 
popular approval ; to which must be added the element of 
power which rests on the personal attachment and esteem of 
contemporaries. Nothing short of these qualities would have 
enabled him to encounter the varied responsibilities of his 
closing days ; for he was yet destined to perform the duties 
of Home-Secretary, and eventually those of the War-Office 
to which he succeeded on the resignation of Lord Herbert of 
Lea in 1861. His death took i^lace two .years later, at his 



DESCENDANTS OF FRANCES CROMWELL. 129 

country-seat of Harpton Com-t, wliither he had retired during 
the Parliamentary vacation to obtain a brief rest from official 
duties. In the hour of his seiziu-e and death no one was 
present but Lady Theresa Lewis. 

Astonishment has sometimes been expressed that Sir Greorge 
Lewis should have sought the distinction of a statesman in 
combination with so many opposing tastes and in face of so 
many personal disqualifications. Fitted rather for the recluse 
life of a scholar and a philosopher, and destitute of those 
superficial qualities which go so far in the make-up of a par- 
liamentary paladin, he yet contrived to engraft on his peaceful 
natiu-e the character of a resolute public man. His father's 
example was no doubt a stimulating infiuence, but his own 
perseverance and native simplicity of heart were the principal 
weapons of his warfare. Thus he mastered every topic that 
came before him, and made opposing strategists aware of the 
fact without the slightest attempt at parade. He was, in fine, 
very much such a public servant as Oliver Cromwell would 
have delighted to honour ; while at the same time the profound 
character of his classic studies would have taxed John Milton's 
talent for panegyric. His knowledge of history w^as so ex- 
haustive as frequently to issue in scepticism ; and he con- 
tributed not a little to the disillusion of the popular beliefs 
which rest on chroniclers of the imaginative order. His 
earliest productions are to be found in the C/assical Journal, 
in the Foreign Quarterly Review, and in translations from the 
Grerman, from and after which period he revelled in a perfect 
miscellany of subjects, political economy, jurisjirudence, as- 
tronomy, ethics, philology, and the origin of races. He was 
acting as editor of the Edinhurgh Review when summoned to 
become a Cabinet Minister, and did not even then relinquish 
his favourite piu'suits. Sir Greorge married in 1844 Lady 
Theresa Villiers, sister of Greorge William fourth Earl 
of Clarendon, and widow of Thomas Henry Lister, Esq., 
herself a clever and vivacious author, and one to whose 
domestic companionship has been attributed a large share 
in the literary successes of her husband. By his will, 
executed in 1861, he bequeathed to her (beyond her 
marriage-settlement) all his property in British, foreign 
or colonial securities for her own absolute use ; also Kent- 
House the Town-residence with the fiu-niture and effects ; 
but as respected jewellery, he directed that the diamonds 
presented to her ladyship by his father the late Sir 
Thomas Frankland Lewis should upon her decease become 
the property of the testator's brother, the successor to the 
title and estates, whom he had appointed his sole executor 

K 



130 THE HOUSE OF CROMWELL, 

and residuary legatee. At liis death in 1863 Sir Greorge was 
sncceeded by tliis only brother, 

Sir Gilrert FRAXKi.yVND Lewis, the third baronet, M.A. 
prebendary of Worcester, rural dean, rector of Mornington 
on the Wye, Hereford. Born 1808, married 1843 Jane eldest 
daughter of Sir Edmund Antrobus, bart. and had issue, — 
1, Edward Frankland, died 1848. — 2, Herbert-Edmund 
Erankland, born 1846. — 3, Lindsay-Frankland, died yoimg. 
— 4, Mary-Anna. — 5, Eleanor. 

VIII. Dinah, fifth daughter of Admiral Frankland, born 
1757, became in 1779 the wife of William Bowles of Heale 
House near Stonehenge in Wiltshire, by whom she had ten 
children. 



Family of Boirlcs. 

Mr. Bowles being a member of Earl Shelburne's Wilts 
Beform Association, his name is constantly found in con- 
junction with those of Lord Badnor, Lord Abingdon, Charles 
James Fox, Awdry, W}'ndham, and others of that country 
party, who, in the County-meetings held in Devizes from 
time to time, denounced the extravagance of the public ex- 
penditure, the American war, and the ever augmenting 
pension-list. Yet, in spite of his Whiggism, Mr. Bowles 
included Dr. Samuel Johnson among his personal friends ; 
and a visit which was paid to Heale House by the Doctor in 
1783 constitutes an episode in his family history linking it 
with still older historical associations. Johnson, we are told, 
valued the companionship of his Wiltshire friend "for the 
exemplary religious order maintained in his family," but 
there is reason to think that the legendary halo which sm'- 
rounded Heale House and its possessors added a fm^ther 
attraction. Here it was that Charles II had lain concealed 
for several days after his defeat at Worcester ; and it was 
from the transactions and conversation which took place at 
the supper-table at Heale House when the fugitive Brince 
arrived there, that Sir Walter Scott borrowed the scenery 
which he has transferred to Woodstock. Then, in connexion 
with that affair was the remarkable chain of events by which 
the estate of Heale had descended from the hands of a rampant 
royalist to a representative of the opposite party. It was but 
natural then, nay it was inevitable, that when Dr. Johnson 
visited the spot, the Civil Wars should occasionally become 
the topic of conversation. It is just at this point in his nar- 



THE ¥AMILY OF BOWLES. l;U 

rative that Boswell says, " I shall here insert a few particu- 
lars with which I have been favoured by one of his friends ;" 
— and then he goes on to state that Johnson had once con- 
ceived the design of writing- the life of Oliver Cromwell ; and 
he adds, infer alia, the account of a ride taken by Johnson to 
Salisbury to attend a scientific lecture. So that there can be 
little doubt, though he does not say so, that this friend was 
William Bowles, and that the formerly projected scheme of 
writing the Protector's Life was one of the subjects in review 
while sojourning in Wiltshire, May not the further sugges- 
tion be admitted that in such a project the Doctor would be 
vehemently stimulated by the gifted lady now in the ascen- 
dant at Heale,-were it not for the fact that his working clays 
were over ? 

Sir Robert Hyde of Dinton, Sergeant at law, and M.P. 
for Salisbmy in the Long Parliament, came by the demise of 
his brother Lawi'ence, (without male issue, though there were 
daughters) into possession of the Heale estates ; and by the 
elevation of his kinsman the Earl of Clarendon, was himself 
created Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. He held more- 
over a variety of interesting heir-looms specified as "the 
j)earl necklace and the chain belonging to the watch, and the 
diamonds in that chain, and the picture of James I and his 
four childi'en, and a small picture of Charles II," the memo- 
rials of the well-known royalism of the house of Hyde and 
of their relationship to the Crown through Lord Clarendon's 
daughter ; and he appears to have been very desirous that the 
landed estates comprizing so interesting a member as the old 
house at Pleale, should, together with the aforesaid heir-looms, 
always belong to a Hyde, and finally revert to an Earl of 
Clarendon. In pursuance of which design, in a settlement of 
his property executed by deed and enrolled in the Common 
Pleas two years before his death. Sergeant Hyde- passed over 
the daughters of his brother Lawrence who had lived on the 
estate before himself, in favour of the sons of his next brother 
Alexander Hyde the Bishop of Salisbury ; and in default of 
issue, then to the sons of other brothers. But now, mark 
the result. In a very few years after Sir Robert's death, one 
of these nephews, Dr. Robert Hyde, being the very first 
person who had the power to cut off the entail, did so ; and 
left Heale to a person bearing another name, his sister, the 
widow of Dr. Levinz, bishop of Sodor and Man ; thus frus- 
trating the first portion of his uncle's cherished scheme. But 
this was not all. We have next to see how the estate -came 
to be possessed by persons of an oxaetly opposite way of 
thinking, namely, the descendants of Oliver Cromwell. The 



132 THE HOUSE OF CROMWEIJ.. 

widow Levinz left tlie Heale estates, wortli more than £2,000 
a year, together with all the heir-looms aforesaid, to Matthew 
Frampton, M.D. of Oxford, who had married her only 
daughter, (which daughter was now dead ;) and from Dr. 
Frampton, who died in 1742, the land passed in succession to 
three nephews, Thomas Bull, Edward Polhill, and Simon 
Polhill ; and these all dying without male issue, then to a 
cousin, William Bowles a canon of Salisbury Cathedral, who 
thereby came into possession in 1759, only seventeen years 
after Dr. Frampton' s death. This canon Bowles was father 
to the William Bowles whose acquaintance we have already 
made as the husband of Dinah Frankland ; who thus brought 
home his bride to a spot consecrated in an eminent degree to 
Royalism ; and in the very parlour probably where the fu- 
gitive Charles had supped in disguise. Dr. Johnson and his 
youthful friends sat chatting about the Rev. Mark Noble's forth- 
coming History of the Protectoral House. That Johnson 
would have entirely approved of that History, had he lived to 
peruse it, may well be doubted ; though, supposing the task 
to have fallen to his own hands, his nobler sympathies may 
surely be credited with a faculty for analysis somewhat beyond 
the sphere of the clergyman's heraldic "illuminations." 

So much for the fortunes of Heale. But what became of 
the descendants of the Salisbury bishop in whose favour the 
will was made ? The following passage in the Annual Re- 
gister for Feb. 1768, will inform us respecting at least one 
of them. 

" There is now living in Lady Dacre's Almshouses, West- 
minster, one Mrs. Windimore, whose maiden name was Hyde. 
She was granddaughter of Dr. Hyde, bishop of Salisbury, 
brother of the great Lord Chancellor Hyde, Earl of Claren- 
don; and she lost her fortune in the South Sea year 1720. 
She is also a distant cousin of their late Majesties Queen Mary 
and Queen Anne whose mother was Lady Anne Hyde 
Duchess of York, whose royal consort was afterwards King 
James II. A lively instance of the mutability of all worldly 
things, that a person related to two crowned heads should by 
a strange caprice of fortune be reduced to live in an Alms- 
house. She retains her senses in a tolerable degree ; and her 
principal complaint is that she has outlived all her friends, 
being now upwards of an hundred years of age." A sub- 
sequent notice dated 6 January 1772 records Mrs. Windimore's 
death in Emanuel Hospital near Tothill Fields at the age of 
a hundred and eight years. She was, says the chronicler, 
" second cousin to Queen Anue, and had lived in that hos- 
pital upwards of fifty years." If further comment on the 



DESCENDANTS OF FRANCES CKOMAVELL. 133 

above be admissible, it might take the following form. 
While the venerable lady, impoverished by the South Sea 
bubble, and sitting alone in the Dacre Almshouse, is no more 
an object of pity than Mrs. Bowles surrounded with affluence 
and brewing a dish of tea for Dr. Johnson ; yet the short- 
sighted provisions of the will-maker who would gladly have 
averted such a result, may surely be permitted to remind us 
that our own stewardship ceases with our own life. 

Now we go back to Dr. Johnson, respecting whose holiday 
on Salisbury Plain, it is to be regretted that there is little on 
record beyond a letter written from Heale to his friend and 
medical adviser Dr. Brocklesby. He remained there nearly 
three weeks ; and as he informs us in his Diary that his em- 
ployment principally consisted in "palliating his malady" 
we may be sure he was conveyed by his friends to visit Stone- 
henge and the other pre-historic relics scattered about that 
neighbom-hood. One of these diives in Mr. Bowles's " high- 
hung coach " was into the city of Salisbury to witness some 
experiments on atmospheric air, when the Doctor could not 
restrain his propensity to growl audibly at the complimentary 
acknowledgments which the lecturer made to the recent scien- 
tific discoveries of Dr. Joseph Priestley the Unitarian divine. 
" Why do we hear so much of Dr. Priestley ?" he muttered, 
— "Because," replied another of the auditors, "it is to Dr. 
Priestley that we owe these important discoveries." — "Well, 
well," he good-natm-edly rejoined, — " I believe we do. Lot 
every man have the honour he has merited." 

Several years ago, namely in 1849, the present writer com- 
municated with Admiral William IBowles, with a view to 
recover if possible some additional memoranda of this visit of 
Dr. Johnson to his father's house ; but it was the Admiral's 
impression that nothing had been preserved beyond what was 
to be found in Boswell; and as for his own recollections, they 
were completely at fault in the matter, as he was but three 
years old at the time. A like result followed application to 
Mr. Bowles' old friend Edward Duke, a neighbouring clergy- 
man living at Lake House near Stonehenge. Mr. Duke had 
indeed often heard the visit referred to, and he remembered 
that a portrait of Dr. Johnson hung over the parlour fire- 
place ; but this was nearly all. 

We pass on to the year 1811, a period of commercial and 
military disaster, which tkrew its shadows, among others, 
over the inhabitants of Heale House. In South Wilts it was 
signalized by the failure of the Salisbmy Bank of " Bowles, 
Ogden, and Wyndham ;" and proved the occasion of immense 
distress among the middle classes of that di&trict, inducing 



134 THE HOUSE OF CROMWELL. 

William, Cobbett. to issue his famous essay entitled " Paper 
versus Gold, addressed to the farmers and tradesmen in and 
near Salisbury ; being an examination of the report of the 
bullion connuittee ; with an exposure of the entire system of 
stock- jobbing, the sinking fund, and the national debt." The 
stoppage of this country-bank was attributed to the failure of 
their agents in London. Mr. Bowles who was at the head of 
the firm was a man of good landed property, but under a flat 
it was decreed to be all disposed of ; whereupon he retired to 
Southampton, and eventually to some remote part of tlie 
New Forest, where he died at an advanced age, about 18o9, 
This spot was probably Bolderwood Lodge ; and the follow- 
ing obituary notice, occurring in a local paper, would seem 
further to indicate that it was a family estate, and the place 
where his wife had died many years previously. — " In Octo- 
ber 1798, Mrs. Bowles of Bolderwood Lodge in the New 
Forest, aged forty one years, was buried at Plaitf ord, followed 
by her husband and nine children." To the history of these 
children we must now advance. 

I. Sir William Bowles, K.C.B. and Admii-al of the 
Fleet, was born at Heale House in 1780. He entered the 
Navy at the age of sixteen, and was present in the expedition 
to Copenhagen, and afterwards in that against the Spanish 
ports. In 1812, while commanding the Aquihii, Captain 
Bowles, assisted by Capt. David Latimer St. Clair of the Shel- 
drake, had to execute the disastrous office of destroying seven 
large English merchant ships laden with hemp, which had run 
ashore in a fog near Stralsund. As 1500 French soldiers 
were posted on a neighboiu'ing cliif, from which they could 
sweep the decks of the merchantmen, it was manifestly im- 
practicable to bring them off. . Their destruction therefore 
was accomplished by approaching each ship in succession on 
the off-side, scuttling her on that side, and then setting her on 
fire. In 1813, and again in 1820, Captain Bowles controlled 
the South American station, and twice received complimentary 
addresses from the British merchants of Buenos Ayres ; the 
latter memorial being accompanied with a present of plate. 
In 1822 he was appointed Controller- general of the coast- 
guard of England and Ireland, which office he held till 
advanced to the rank of Rear Admiral in 1811. He became 
Admiral of the Fleet in 1869. In 1820 he had married the 
Hon. Frances Temple, sister of the late Lord Palmerston. 
His death occurred on the 2nd of July 1869, at his residence, 
21 Hill Street, Berkeley Square, in the ninetieth year of his 
ago, just when he had reached his highest grade. 

II. Sir George, born 1787, a General in the Army, and 



THE FAMILY OF WHINYATES. 130 

G.C.B ; — served in Germany, the Peninsula, Flanders, and 
France, — Military Secretary to the Duke of Eichmond in 
Canada and Jamaica, — Commander of Lower Canada during 
the rebellion of 1838, — Master of the Queen's household in 
1845, — M.p. for Launceston, 1844 ; — Lieutenant of the Tower 
of London, 1851 ; — Colonel of the First West India Regi- 
ment, 1855 ; died unmarried, 1870. 

III. Tpiomas-Henry, barrister at law ; died unmarried at 
the Cape of Good Hope in 1868. 

IV. Anne, married in 1805 to Dr. Fowler of Salisbury, 
and died 1878, aged ninety six, when this branch of the 
Bowles family became extinct, and the great wealth that she 
inlierited from her brothers went to the Salisbmy Infirmary. 

V. yi, VII, yill, IX, X. Lucy, Charlotte, Harriet, 
Katharine, Amelia, and Augusta, died young or unmarried. 



Family of Whinyates. 

X. Katharine, sixth daughter of Admiral Frankland, 
married in 1777 Major Thomas Whinyates of Abbotsleigh, 
Devon, of the second Dragoon Guards and afterwards of the 
East India service, and had six sons and nine daughters. 
The house of Whinyates traces from the manor and estate 
of Chellaston, five miles from Derby, purchased during the 
middle ages from an Earl of Huntingdon. Eoljert Whin- 
yates of Uueen Elizabeth's time married in 1587 Katharine 
Osborne, and had a son Eichard buried at Chellaston in 
1G60. Eichard's wife was Elizabeth daughter of Gilbert 
Wakelyn of Hilton, Derby. Charles Whinyates of Peter- 
borough and of Chellaston, born 1G91, was an Officer in 
Temple's Dragoons, and afterwards in the Coldstream Guards. 
He held the post of Eichmond Herald, and was grandfather 
to Major Thomas Whinyates with whom we began as the 
husband of Katharine Frankland. Their children were, 

I. Thomas, a most intrepid sea-captain, — born in 1778, — 
entered the Navy at the age of fifteen, — was present at the 
storming of Fort-Eoyal, Martinique, March 1794, — in Brid- 
port's action ofi; Port L'Orient with the Brest fleet, 23 June 
1795, — in Warren's action in Donegal Bay, 12 Oct. 1798 
with the French squadron for the invasion of Ireland, on 
which occasion he fought in the Robust 74 which captured 
the La Iloche of 80 guns. He commanded the Frolic at the 
capture of Guadaloape, Martinique, and St. Martins, 1809 — 
10 ; but at this point in his career, a check awaited him. 
Misfortune it could hardly be termed as respected himself, 



136 THE HOUSE OF CROMWELL. 

since liis conduct throngliout the affair rather gilded than 
tarnished the Laurels already gathered. During the second 
war with America in 1812, Captain Whinyates, still in com- 
mand of his brig Frolic of only 384 tons, was convoying the 
homeward bound trade from the Bay of Honduras, when on 
the 18 Sep. he was captured by the United States sloop Wasp, 
Capt. Jacob Jones, after an engagement which lasted fifty 
minutes. Captain Whinyates entered into action under great 
disadvantages. His vessel, besides being smaller than the 
American, had both her top-masts badly sprung and the main- 
yard carried away by a recent gale. He was in the act of 
repairing this damage when the enemy approached. His men 
too were fewer in nimiber and in a low condition ; yet the 
fight was maintained till fifteen of the crew were slain, and 
himself with all his officers and forty three men wounded. In 
the course of the same day the Wasp was captm^ed and the 
Frolic recovered by the Foictiers of 74 guns, Capt. John F. 
Beresford ; to whom Whinyates' conduct appeared to have 
been so decidedly gallant that he re-instated him in the com- 
mand of his brig until her arrival at Bermuda. A Court- 
martial afterwards declared that he had done all that was 
possible, and as a matter of course he was honourably ac- 
quitted. Meanwhile his post-commission had borne date from 
12 August 1812, of which he remained unacquainted till his 
retiurn to England. He became Rear Admiral in 1846. The 
five clasps of Admiral Whinyate's war-medal record his valour 
at, — 1, Gruadaloupe, — 2, Martinique, — 3, in Warren's action, 
— 4, in Brid]3ort's, — 5, for boat service at the storming of 
Fort Eoyal Martinique. He died immarried in 1857, aged 
seventy nine. 

2. Russell-Manneiis-Mertolu, so named in memory of 
his birth in 1780 at Mertolu a Portuguese town in the Alen- 
tejo, at a time when his parents were prisoners of war. He 
died at Brighton in 1788. 

3. Sir Edward-Charles Whinyates, K.C.B. and K.H. 
This distinguished soldier, born in 1782, was educated at Dr. 
Newcome's school. Hackney, and at the Royal Military 
Academy, Woolwich. He entered the army in 1798 as second 
lieutenant in the Artillery, and was with Sir Ralph Aber- 
crombie at the landing of the Holder, and under the Diie of 
York in the campaign of North Holland. In 1807 he was 
at the siege and capture of Copenhagen under Lord Cathcart. 
Erom 1810 to 1813 he fought in the Peninsula, sharing in 
many an arduous action, and being generally found in the 
advance or rear guards ; for which services he received the 
Peninsula medal with two clasps for Busaco and Albuera. 



DESCENDANTS OF FRANCES CR()MWET,L. 137 

At "Waterloo, where he was severely wounded in the left arm, 
he commanded the second Rocket Troop, R.H.A. and during 
the three following years remained with the army of occupa- 
tion in France. A brevet majority and a medal were the 
rewards of his conduct at Waterloo. And here his active 
services ceased, with the exception, twenty five years later, of 
commanding the Ai'tillery during some domestic distiu-bances 
in the northern counties ; but his nominal honom-s had yet to 
advance till they culminated in the rank of Greneral in De- 
cember 1864, being then eighty two years of age. Greneral 
Whinyates married in 1827 Elizabeth only daughter of 
Samuel Crompton of Woodend, Yorks, Esq. which lady died 
in childbirth in the following year. His own decease took 
place in 1865 at his residence, Dorset Yilla, Cheltenham. 

4. GrEORGE BuRRiNGTON Whinyates, Captain in the 
royal navy, — born in 1783, and educated at Dr. Newcome's 
school, — commenced service at the age of fourteen ; and in 
1806 was at the fight of San Domingo when Admiral Duck- 
worth took or destroyed foiu' sail of the line. In the Hon. 
Robert Stopford's ship the Spencer, 74, Mr. Whinyates was 
serving as Lieutenant, ignorant of the fact that he had abeady 
been promoted to a Captaincy. The Spencer captured the 
Alexandre, 80, — medal granted. The last ship he commanded 
was the Berg ere sloop of war of 18 guns. He died of con- 
sumption, unmarried, at the age of twenty five. 

5. Major Gtexeral Frederick- William Whinyates of 
the Royal Engineers, — married at Harpton Court in 1830 
Sarah-Marianne Whalley, and had eight childi'en. Husband 
and wife still living (1879) at the family seat, Dorset Villa, 
Cheltenham. 

1. Harriet, died in infancy, 1830. 

2. Emily-Marianne died at the age of four. 

3. Frederick-Thomas, Lieut. Col. Royal Horse Ar- 
tillery, — mar. 1872 Constance fifth d. of Matthew Bell 
of Bourne-Park, Canterbury, Esq. 

4. Edward- Henry, of Trin. Col. Oxon, cm-ate at 
East Hampstead, Berks. 

5. Francis- Arthm^, Major, commanding the C. 
Battery, a. Bde Royal Horse Artillery 

6. Albert- William- Orme, Captain H.P. Royal 
Artillery. Mar. 1868 Margaret- Williams, only d. of 
Major Ceneral William Dunn, R.A. died 1878, aged 
thiHy seven. 

7. Amy-Octavia. 

8. Charles-Elidon, Captain in 52nd Light In- 
fantry. Died at Meutone in 1872, aged twenty six, 



13^ THE HOUSE OF (JROMWEl.L. 

6. GrENERAL FR-iNCIS-FllAlSIKLAND WhINYATES, of the 

Macbas Artillery, married, 1826 Elizabeth Campbell of Or- 
misdale, Co. Argyle. 

7. Sarah-Anne-Catherina, died in 1860, having married, 
first, in 1803, Lieut. James Robertson of the Bengal En- 
gineers; and secondly, in 1811, Captain Robert Younghus- 
band of her Majesty's 53rd Regiment. Her children by the 
first marriage were, — James- Alexander, who died in 1828, — 
and Sarah-Mary-Emily, mar. 1833, to Major Chalmer of the 
7th Dragoon Gruards, and had nine children. Mrs. Chalmer 
died in 1850, her husband in 1868. The issue were, 

1. Anna. 

2. Emily-Eliza, mar. 1870 to Capt. P. Carr, and 
has a son. 

3. Catharine-Frances. 

4. Charlotte- Amy-Rachel, mar. 1875 to Mr. Percy 
P. Lysaght. 

5. Greorgina-Isabella, infant. 

6. Gilbert-Stirling, Capt. in the Blues,— mar. 1873 
to the Hon. Norah Westenra, — has a son, Henry- 
Francis. 

7. Reginald, Capt. 60th Rifles. 

8. Greorge, Capt. 92nd Highlanders. 

9. Francis, Lieut. R.N. retired. 

8. Amy, died unmarried, 1875, aged ninety. 

9. Rachel, died unmarried, 1858. 

10. Ellen-Margaret, died in infancy, 1788. 

11. Isabella- Jane, died unmarried, 1868. 

12. Mercy, died in infancy, in 1790. 

13. Caroline-Charlotte, died in infancy in 1796. 

14. OcTAViA, married William Christmas of Whitfield, Co. 
Waterford, who died 1867. 

15. Letitia, died unmarried in 1862. 

This brings down to present times the history of the pre- 
eminently fighting race of the Whinyates ; who since their 
union with Admiral Frankland's daughter have furnished 
fourteen conspicuous male names to the two Services, besides 
brothers in law. 



T/ie family of Nicholas. 

XI. Charlotte, seventh daughter of Admiral Frankland, 
married in 1778 Robert, elder son of Dr. Edward Richmond 
Nicholas, of Roimdway Park, Dovizes, described in an obi- 
tuary notice in the SuHshury Journal of 1770 as " an eminent 



TIIK FAMILY OF NICHOLAS. 139 

physician of Devizes," where and in the neighbourhood the 
family had long- flourished. Nicholas memorials are found in 
the parishes of St. John and St. Mary, Devizes, Southbroom 
St. James Devizes, Bishops Cannings, All Cannings, "Winter- 
boum-Earls, and Manningford-Bruce. Possibly they all 
derive from an eminent individual connected at some remote 
period with the coimty of Wilts and bearing the title of 
" Chamberlain Nicholas ;" whose history has been sought in 
vain, but whose memorial seems to survive in the name of 
the village '' Compton Chamberlain Nicholas," long the seat 
of the Penruddoekes. The family of Nicholas, thus widely 
spread in Wiltshire, has furnished many distinguished cha- 
racters, — four for instance in the Civil War period, — John 
and Matthew two royalist divines, Sir Edward the well 
known Secretary to Charles I and II, and Robert Nicholas 
the barrister, who was Eecorder and M.P. for Devizes, one of 
the prosecuting counsel at Archbishop Laud's trial, and after- 
wards one of Oliver's Judges. The central home of the clan 
appears to have been Eoundway Park and village aforesaid. 
Evidence at least that they had a mansion here four hundred 
years back survives in a tradition inserted in their pedigree 
{Ilarkian MSS. 1443) that " Wilham Nicholas was slain 
without the gate-house at Eoundway" an event associated 
apparently with the Wars of the Eoses, and corresponding in 
date with the Battle of Tewkesbury. Moreover, the Anti- 
quaries seem pretty well satisfied that the inheritance of 
Eoundway constitutes a material part of the evidence which 
traces the direct descent of this branch from the Lords De la 
Eoche of Haverfordwest thi"ough the Lady Dionysia the only 
child of the last lord. See note in Cole of Devon's genealogy, 
by J. E. Cole of the Inner Temple. This barony therefore, 
which has long been in abeyance, found a diligent suitor in 
the late Mr. Nicholas, nor have his descendants relinquished 
the claim. That gentleman, to whom we now revert as the 
husband of Miss Charlotte Frankland, was educated at Win- 
chester School and Chiist Church, Oxon, and was styled '' of 
Eoundway and afterwards of Ashton-Keynes," both in North 
Wilts, Esq. F.S.A. a barrister at law and county magistrate, 
M.P. for Cricklade 1784—1790, in the Tory interest, and 
chairman of the board of excise for 32 years. The children 
by his two marriages were eighteen in number ; those de- 
scending from Miss Frankland being as follows. 

1. Edward, Charge d'affaires at Hamburgh, latterly Gro- 
vernor of Heligoland, and a Dutch merchant, — born 1779, — 
died 1828. 

2. EoiJERT, a daring naval officer, who lost his life at sea, 



14C THE HOUSE OV fJROMWKl.L, 

3 August 1810, just as he was made post-captain into the 
Garland, Tlie catastrophe occuiTed on board the Lark which 
foundered off San Domingo in one of the white squalls peculiar 
to that station. 

3. Wii.LiAisi, a soldier of purest gallantry and high profes- 
sional skill, — like William of Deloraine " ever ready at need," 
and like Nelson, unacquainted with fear ; — ardently desirous 
of promotion, hut resolved to reach it only through the channel 
of personal merit and imfaltering devotion to duty. Endowed 
too with a frank and genial nature, it is no wonder that he 
took rank among the specially lamented victims of war, or 
that his virtues should be emblazoned in Colonel Napier's 
History of the Peninsular Campaign, and in a copious bio- 
graphy in the Royal Military Chronicle for Feb. 1813. The 
latter is fm-ther illustrated by a portrait in which we trace 
the lineaments of an unpretentious, quiet, and self possessed 
soldier. The late Sir Thomas Frankland Lewis, after epito- 
mizing his kinsman's career, says in conclusion, "he was 
beyond all doubt an admirable officer." This testimony we 
have now briefly to support. 



MAJOR WILLIAM NICHOLAS. 

Third son of his father, born at Ashton-Keynes in Wilt- 
shire 12 Dec. 1785, received his grammatical education at 
Mr. Newcome's school at Hackney, was a Woolwich cadet in 
1799, a Lieutenant of Engineers in 1801, and first saw active 
duty at the defences of the western heights of Dover. In 
the spring of 1806 he joined the expedition to Sicily, dating 
from which time till his early death, he took part in eleven 
engagements, viz. at St. Euphemia, Maida, Rosetta first and 
second, Bagnora, Alexandria, Scylla first and second, Alcanitz, 
Barossa, and Badajos. It was at the ill-contrived assault on 
Rosetta that he had his first experience of the style of warfare 
practised by " the unspeakable Trn-k," whose cavalry during 
the retreat of the English, descended like vultures on the 
helplessly wounded, and d.eliberately cut off their heads. 
Dming the street fighting at Rosetta, when Greneral Meade 
was wounded in the eye. Captains Nicholas and James bore 
him in their arms out of that scene of carnage, and placed 
him on the camel which carried him to A.lexandria. Though 
unwounded in fight, Mr. Nicholas about this time sustained 
great injury from a bathing accident at Alexandria, by 
plunging into water which was so shallow that his breast 
struck against a sunken rock. His medical friend Eitzpatrick 




MAJOR WILLIAM NICEOLAS. 



DESCBNDANTS OF FRANCES CKOMWELL. 141 

feared for awhile that his lungs were fatally injured ; and 
though the voyage from Egypt to Messina jiartially restored 
him, a return to England was advised and eventually put in 
practice. But before this check to his professional career 
should occur, he had contrived to see service of a novel kind 
in South Italy, where his duties in reconnoitring the move- 
ments of the French brought him into fellowship with the 
Banditti of Calabria, to whom his frank and happy nature 
at once endeared him. He describes them, it is true, as 
" savages who never shaved or cut their hair, and in appear- 
ance the most horrid ruffians imaginable," yet he was evi- 
dently fascinated by their skill and intrepidity in harassing 
the foe ; and one of their chieftains in retm-n flattered him 
by the presentation of a rifle. After the affair of Scylla in 
Eeb. 1808, we find him entrusted with diplomatic messages 
to the Spanish authorities, a plain indication that his reputa- 
tion for enlarged action was on the rise. But the ardour of 
his nature would not allow him to be absent from tjie battle 
of Alcanitz in May 1809, where the Spaniards as usual left 
all the fighting to their English allies, who nevertheless 
achieved a dashing success. He now paid the long delayed 
visit to England, in order to consult Dr. Baillie, who after 
due examination, pronounced his lungs sound and unhurt. 
This cheering announcement, combined with the solatium of 
his Wiltshire home which he enjoyed till the ensuing spring, 
lifted his spirits and confirmed his health ; and he went back 
in March as second Engineer nominated for the defence of 
Cadiz. How he again threw his energies into the weary 
struggle, — how he organized and worked a new telegraphic 
system of his own contrivance, — how efiiciently he drew the 
lines round Cadiz and La Isla, and while reconnoitring the 
marshy stations there, how often he was obliged to swim 
fi'om bank to bank through the dykes, — how his intelligence 
and prowess were conspicuous throughout the fight at Ba- 
rossa, — and how it was all felt to be in large measirre recom- 
pensed by the approval and friendshij) of Sir Thomas Grraham 
(afterwards Lord Lynedoch) ; all indeed amply ratifies his 
own assertion that he was born to be a soldier, but they 
further testify that at the early age of twenty five he had 
abeady reached the standard of a veteran. In after years 
Sir Thomas Grraham habitually spoke of his conduct at 
Barossa as beyond all praise. But let the young soldier here 
tell his own story, as recorded in his letters home .... 
" It was the most glorious day England ever saw. I wish 
the eyes of the world had been upon us. I have not had 
time to indulge in melancholy reflections since I received, 



142 THE HOUSE OF CROMWELL. 

your letter ; b^it as I galloped through the fire, I thought of 
the pleasui-e of meeting my mother and brothers, and never 
saw death with more indifference. The men fell too fast to 
he counted. In short, never was there greater slaughter or a 
more distinguished battle and victca-y. It exceeds Maida and 
Alcanitz. I assure you they were nothing in comparison. 
Captain Birch and myself were publickly thanked on the 
field of battle for the assistance we rendered Greneral Grraham, 
in these words, — ' Tliere are no two officers in the army to 
whom I am more indebted than to you two,' — stretching out 
his hands to us, — ' You have shewn yom'selves as fine fellows 
in the field as at your redoubts.' I hope he will not forget 
me in his public letter. In every action I have been in before, 
I have not been perfectly satisfied with mj^self, always 
thinking that I might have done more. At Barossa I in- 
wardly feel and am satisfied that I did honour to our name " 
. . " But alas, as in all our victories, honour will be the 
only reward that falls to us. We have retired again into La 
Isla, disgusted with our allies ; and have left them to pursue 
their objects as they can. Our men and the soldiers' wives 
abuse the Spanish Officers and men as they pass them in the 
streets ; so that it is probable some disturbance will happen. 
The Portuguese infantry, who fought admirably, publickly 
abuse them in the streets." 

The above compliment from the Greneral was felt to be 
high praise when pronounced upon a field where every Briton 
had proved himself a hero. Well has Sir Walter Scott indi- 
cated the difficulty of selection among the illustrious names 
of that hoiu". 

" Yes, hard the task when Britons wield the sword, 
To give each Chief and every field its fame. 
Hark, Albuera thunders Beresford ! 

And red Barossa shouts for dauntless Grteme. 
Oh for a verse of tumult and of flame, 

Bold as the bursting of their cannon sound, 
To bid the World re-echo to their fame. 
For never upon gory battle-ground, 
With conquest's well-bought wreath were braver victors crown'd." 

About this time Mr. Nicholas reported home the fall of his 
cousin. Captain Whinyates of the Royal Ai-tillery, which 
happily proved incorrect. He had more certain intelligence 
respecting the death of his own brother, Lieut, Thomas 
Nicholas, who perished at sea, of whom hereafter. We now 
pass to the tragedy of Badajos, where William Nicholas 
alone must fill our vision. 

It was just, as it was natm'ally to be expected, that he should 



TrfK FAMILY OF NICHOLAS. 14;j 

volunteer to direct tlie action of the storming column wliicli 
ascended tlie great breach ; and it was in accordance with his 
habits of thoroughness that in the dead of the night, pre- 
ceding the night of the attack, he determined on making a 
personal reconnoitre of the position. For this purpose he 
stripped, and disregarding the perils of sentinels or of cold 
water, forded the inundation of the Ravellas in order to de- 
determine the safest passage across, — an action, of which due 
note was taken by Sir Thomas Grraham. 

The next night witnessed the assault. After twice assayino- 
to reach the summit of the breach, Nicholas fell, wounded by 
a musket-ball grazing his knee, a bayonet-thrust in the right 
leg, his left arm broken, and his wrist bleeding from a third 
shot. Thus shattered, he rolled among the horrid debris ; 
but on hearing the soldiers demand who should lead them on 
to the third attack, he rallied his energies sufficiently to order 
two of his men to hold him up in their arms and carry his 
wounded body to the front. Again were they at the top of 
the breach, when one of his bearers fell dead, and himself 
received a fourth shot which broke two ribs and passed out 
near the spine. This shock precipitated him the whole length 
of the slope down to the bottom of the breach. By his side 
were falling his friends Colonel McLeod, Captain James, and 
Major Greneral Colville. The last mentioned Officer swooned 
from the agony of a wound in the thigh, but he afterwards 
recovered ; and when writing home to his brother in law 
Canon Frankland (an uncle to William Nicholas) he says, 
" the last sound which I heard was the voice of that valuable 
young man and excellent Officer, Captain Nicholas, empha- 
tically exhorting his men in the ditch." 

After a first and imperfect dressing of his wounds, William 
Nicholas summoned strength to ^vrite home, and thus began, 
— "My dear Sir"; — but wishing apparently once more to 
realize the more endearing relationship, he passes his pen 
through the word " Sir," and writes, — " My dear Father. 
The breaches were stormed last night, and Badajos taken. I 
had the honour of showing and leading the troops of the 
advance to the great breach. I am wounded in the foUowino- 
manner ; — one musket ball through the left arm, breaking it 
about the middle below the elbow, — another through my left 
side, breaking I believe one or two ribs, — two very slight 
woimds, one on the knee-pan, and one in the calf of my left 
leg, — ditto, wrist of the left arm. Adieu, my dear Father. 
Your most affectionate son — 

William Nicholas. 
Camp before Badajoz. 
7 April. 1812. 



144 THE HOUSE OF CROMWELL. 

He also sent a letter through Sir Thomas Graham to Lord 
Welliugton, who made answer, that there was no Officer who 
need be under less anxiety than Captain Nicholas as to his 
country's being properly sensible of his services or of the 
certainty of honourable notice and promotion. The rank of 
Major by brevet was promptly bestowed, but it is doubtful 
whether he lived to be aware of it. On the fourth day he 
said to Captain Gardiner of the Artillery, — " It is worth 
while getting wounded, to feel the delight of recovering one's 
strength and of overcoming pain." But in truth there were 
no more victories of tliat or any other kind in store for the 
languishing sulferer. The drain of so much blood had sapped 
his youthful energies, and the gorged and collapsed lungs 
refused to perform their normal function. We close the scene 
with the testimony of an attached friend, Mr. Fitzpatrick, 
who was also his medical attendant . . "It was often," 
says he, " a melancholy pleasure, when the sudden accession 
of violent pain from incautious exertion brought forth the 
unwilling shriek, to see him immediately smile, and beg us 
to forgive that unavoidable expression of his sufferings. He 
at times seemed as if he would communicate something to 
me ; but until the moment previous to his death did not say 
anything particular ; when, as I stood by his bedside, con- 
vulsively laying hold of my hand, he said, Fitzpatrick, you 
see I am near my end. When you return to England, tell 
my beloved father how I terminated my life. Console him 
and the family in the best manner you may be able. I know 
my death will be a severe blow to him my brothers and 
sisters." And with these expressions he calmly expired. 
This happened in the afternoon of 14 April 1812, being the 
eighth day after his wounds. 

Sir liichard Fletcher the Commanding Engineer erected, 
before quitting the captured city, an altar-tomb over the 
grave of his comrade, and announced the fact to the elder Mr. 
Nicholas, who had now in the brief space of two years lost 
three sons in the service. The biographer of William 
Nicholas in the Military Chronide adojits as a motto suitable 
to his friend, the Greek epigram which declares that the 
favourite of the Gods dies young. 

4. Thomas, born 1790, a naval Lieutenant of H.M.S. 
Satellite. He w^as supposed to have been blown up with his 
boats' crew, while setting fire to the French frigate Eli>>e off 
Tatatho on the coast of France, 19 Dec. 1810. At any rate, 
neither the boat nor her freight were ever again seen. 

5. Chart,es, born 1794, died 1822 ; at first a Woolwich 
cadet ; but on the death of his brother William, it was de- 



DESCENDANTS OF I'RANCKS CROMWELL. 1-iO 

cided to send him to Oxford. He eventually became a 
barrister of Lincolns Inn, but shortly after died of consumption 
at Madeira, his remains being brought to England for inter- 
ment in the family vault at Ashton-Keynos. 

6. Charlotte, born 1784, died unmarried. 

7'. Sophia, born 1787, died unmarried in 18G6. 

8. Frances, died unmarried in 1860, aged seventy two, 
and was bmied in Kensal Green cemetery. 

9. Harriet, married in 1816 Captain (afterwards. Admiral) 
Heury-Theodosius-Browne Collier, brother to Admiral Sir 
Francis Collier; and died in 1850 the mother of seven 
children. 

I. George-Baring-Bro\vno, Capt. R.N. — mar. Jus- 
tina-Maria-Stepney, youngest d. of Joseph Grulston of 
Derwydd, Carmarthen. 

II. Clarence- Augustus, Lieut. Col. Bombay Staff 
corps, — retired on full pay with rank of Colonel. He 
mar. Anne, d. of Peter Eolt Esq. M.P. 

III. Herbert-Cromwell, Capt. 21 Hussars, — mar. 
Blanche-Frances, only child of Major General Bonner. 

IV. Gertrude-Barbara-Rich., mar. Charles Tennant 
of Cadoxton Lodge, Glamorgan, Esq. 

V. Harriette-Augusta-Royer, mar. Sir Alexander 
Campbell, bart. of Barcaldine. 

VI. Adeline-Letitia, — mar. Robert Gordon, Ad- 
jutant General of the Madras Army. 

VII. Clementina-Frances, — mar. Frederick-Erskine 
Johnston, Capt. R.N. son of the late Rt. Hon. Sir 
Alexander Johnston of Carnsalloch, co. Dumfries. 

10. Ellenor, born 1796, married Mr. Sutton, and died, 
s.p. in 1862. 

11. Maria, died unmarried in 1821. 

Mrs. [Charlotte Frankland] Nicholas having died in 1800, 
her sui'viving husband married, secondly, in 1805, Anne, 
daughter of John Shepherd Clark Esq. and by her had, 
with many other children. Major Griffin Nicholas of the 62nd 
or Wiltshire regiment, the present head of the family and 
claimant of the barony of De la Roche aforesaid, — born in 
1813, and now, 1879, resident at Hounslow. Mrs. Nicholas 
died at her son's house in 1873, having outlived her husband 
forty seven years. But as this second family do not inherit 
the blood of Cromwell, their history will not be further pur- 
sued. Mr. Nicholas had died in 1826, at Clifton, from whence 
the body w^as brought to Ashton-Keyncs. As all tlie sons of 
his first marriage died childless, ho is now represented by 



146 THE HOUSE OF f']l()MWELL. 

Major Grriffin Nicholas aforesaid, avIio has drawn up and 
printed a history of his ancestral house, entitled " Gcuvah)(jkaJ 
Memoranda rchdiiKj tn the fumil;/ of Ni('hoIit>i.''' 4to. 1874. 

Faiiiih/ of Gos>ic(. 

XII. Grace, eighth daughter of Admiral Frankland, mar- 
ried in 1798 Matthew Gosset Esq. Viscount of Jersc}^ ; and 
died ill 1801. This is a family of French descent, originally 
located either at St. Lo or at St. Sauveur in Normandy. 
They left France at the period of the revocation of the Edict 
of Nantes. Matthew Gosset's chilcli-en by Grace Frankland 
were as follows. 

I. William-Matthew, Lieut. Col. Royal Engineers ; — served 
during the last war with America of 1812-14, and was en- 
gaged at the capture of Oswego. Married Louisa Walter in 
18130, and died in 1856. 

II. Admiral Henry Gosset ; served like his brother in tlie 
last war with the States, and assisted at the captm-e of Genoa ; 
— escorted Napoleon I. to St" Helena. Born in 1708, — died 
unmarried in 1877. 

HI. Captain Charles Gosset, of the Eoyal Navy ; — served 
in the Mediterranean and Adriatic during the war with 
France ; — died unmarried, 18G8. 

IV. Grace-Elizabeth,— -married in 1819 to John Callaghan 
of Cork, Esq. and by him, Avho died 1844, had three children, 
of whom two sons are dead, and a daughter was married in 
1876 to C. 11. I'almer of Carrig, Uueen's Co. Esq. 

V. Arthur, of Eltham in Kent and of West Park, Mort- 
lake ; is a retired Major of Artillery, a Magistrate for Kent, 
and a Deputy-Lieutenant. In 18o4 he married Augusta 
daughter of Thomas Morgan Esq. and had twelve chikben. 

1. Augusta-Louisa. — 2. Emma. 

3. Arthm'-Wellesley, late Capt. 2nd. Uueen's Eoyals. 
— Sold out in 1868. Served througliout the China 
war of 1860 and in the advance on Pekin. Medal and 
two clasps. 

4. Matthew- William-Edward, Capt. 54th Foo! ;— 
received a medal for service during the Indian mutiny, 
— Aide de camp in 1878 to General Lord Chelmsforcl 
at the Cape of Good Hope, and in 1879. A.-Q.-M.-G. 
to General Newdigate. 

5. Mary-Harriet. — 6. Philip-Henry. 

7. Laura-Henrietta. — 8. Octavia-Georgina-Emily. 
9. G-ert rude-Maria ; mar. 1873, to F. \i. Shad well 
of Barnes, Esq. has one son, born 1875, 



F.mil.Y ()]■• OOSSET. 117 

10. Grace-Amelia. — 11. Adolaide-Louifa-Julia. 
12, Eclward-Fraiikland, Lieut, first battalion of 
15th Foot. 
This completes the genealogies of the younger children of 
Admiral Frankland. The baronetcy has now to be carried 
on in the person of his eldest son and heir, 

Sir Thomas Fraxklaxd, sixth baronet, — born 1750, died 
18''31, having, in 1775, married liis cousin, Dorothy, daughter 
of AVilliam tSmelt and niece of Leo Smelt Esq. iSub-governor 
to the Prince of Wales, [George IV.] and by her, ^\'ho died 
1820, had six children, the youngest of whom was his 
successor. 

Sir EoiiERT Franklaxd, the seventh baronet, who having 
inherited the Chequers estate by the will of Sir liobert Green- 
hill Ivussell in 18;iG [see page 108] assumed by sign manual 
tlie surname of Itussell in addition to and after that of Frank- 
land. He was born 1784, and in 1815 married the hon. 
Louisa- Anne, third daughter of Lord George Murray, bishop 
of St. David's, He sat in several Parliaments, but took no 
prominent part, nor held office. His five daughters were, 

I. Augusta-Louisa, mar. 1842, to Thomas De Grey, 
fifth baron Walsingham, and d. 1844, leaving a son, 
Thomas, Avho in 1870 succeeded his father as sixth 
baron, and mar. 1877, Augusta-Selina-Elizabeth, 
widow of Ernest-Fitzroy Neville, Lord Bm-ghersh. 

II. Caroline-Agnes, d. imm. 1846. 

III. Emil}'- Ainie, mar. Sir William Payne Gallwey, 
of Thirkleby park, bart ; M.P. for Thirsk, and was 
the mother of — 1, Palph-AVilliam, in the army, who 
mar. Edith- Alice, d. of Tho. M. Usborne of Black- 
rock, CO. Cork. — 2, Edwin. — 3, Lionel. — 4, Wyndham- 
Harry. — 5, Leonora-Anne. — 6, Bertha-Louisa. — 7, 
Isabel-Julia, d. 1873. 

IV. Julia-Ptoberta, mar. 1845, llalph Neville Gren- 
ville, eldest s. of George Neville, and grandson of the 
second Baron Bray broke, — and had issue, — 1. Robert, 
184G, — 2. George, 1850, — 3. Flugh, 1851, — 4. Louisa, 
— 5. Agnes-Magdalen, — 6. Beatrice, — 7. Etheldreda. 

V. Ilosalind- Alicia, became in 1854 the second wife 
of Lieut. Col. Francis L'Estrange Astley, third son of 
Sir Jacob-Henry Astley ; and is now [1878] Mrs. 
Frankland Ilussell Astley of ('hequers Court, Buck 
Their issue were, — Bertram Frankland, 1857. — Hube 
Delaval, 18G0,— and Peginald Basil, 1802. 



148 THE H018E OF CROMWELL. 

Sir Eotert died in 1849, and was succeeded by liis cousin. 

Sir Frederick-William Frankland Kussell tlie eighth 
baronet, lately residing at Cheltenham. Ho was the eldest 
eon of Eoger Frankland the Canon of Wells. See page 123. 
Born in 1793, ho received his military education at Marlow 
and Woolwich, — joined tlie Duke of Wellington in Portugal 
in 1812, — was present at l\ampeluna, Pyrenees, Nivelle, Nive, 
Bidasoa, Bayonne, Toulouse, and Waterloo ; also at the 
storming of Cambray, — held office in the Ordnance depart- 
ment at Gibraltar, served in the East and West Indies, and 
sold out in 1825. For fifteen years he was a Magistrate and 
Deputy Lieutenant of Sussex, in which County his estate of 
Montham lay. In the evening of his days he drew up, at the 
request of his chikben, a relation of his military life, more 
particularly of the part which he had borne in the Peninsular 
War, and under the title of ^'■Reminiscences of a Veteran " it 
was printed for private circulation in 1872, adorned with a 
portrait of the old soldier. It makes no pretentions to sys- 
tematic history, but abounds with personal incidents like the 
following. liis health, it appears, Avas far from good 
when he left England as a youth, yet he had no dis- 
position to retreat before that or any other obstacle. It 
was therefore rather humbling to his pride when, one 
day, while the Ai-my was ploughing its way by the 
torrent of Bidasoa, driving the French before them, 
a message came from the Adjutant directing the young Officer 
to go to the rear, and taking command of the sick men there 
gathered, to march them to the nearest hospital-station. The 
order was peremptory and had to be put in immediate execu- 
tion. So the march began ; but after the first quarter of a 
mile, its ignominy could be endm-ed no longer, and the word 
was given to "Halt." "Well, my lads," he went on, "I 
never expected to have such a duty as this to perform. I 
ought at this moment to be leading the Grrenadiers into 
action ; instead of which I am sent to the rear with a pack 
of skulking fellows who are shamming sickness because they 
are tired of fighting. You may hear the guns firing now, 
and the French are in full retreat. Come now, just change 
your minds. You may be unwell, but there is not one of 
you so ill as myself. I declare it drives me mad to think of 
it." After a short pause, one of their number stepped for- 
Avard. — "Mr. Frankland, we are all knocked up, but we have 
nevertheless determined to go back with you." So the word 
was given " right about face ; " the fighting battalion was 
soon overtaken, and every invalid rejoined his company. 

Sir Frederick married in 1821 Katharine-Margaret, only 



DESCENDANTS OF FRANCES CROMWELL. 149 

daughter of Isaac Scarth of Stakesby, Yorks, Esq. hj wlioni, 
Avho died 1871, he had, 

I. rrederick-Roger, midshipmau in the WincJicster, 
died at Sierra Leone, 1845. 

_ II. Thomas, of the 48th Madras native infantry, 
killed in 1857 at the storming of a tower in tlie 
Secundur-Bagh at Liieknow. 

III. Harr}^- Albert, midshipman in the Alarm, died 
of fever at Vera Cruz, 1847. 

_IV. William- Adoiphus, Major in the Royal En- 
gineers, married in 1864 Lucy Ducarel, daughter of 
Francis Adams of Clifton and the Ootswold, Gloster, 
Esq. 

V. Colville, Captain 103rd Fusileers, married in 
1870 Mary Jay, daughter of William Dawson of New 
York, and has a son, born 1872. 

VI. Frederica, died in infancy at Poonah E.I. 

YII. Eliza-Henrietta- Augusta, married at Frank- 
fort on the Maine, 1861, to Major F. S. Yacher, of 
the 22nd Regiment. 

YIII. Maria-Margaret-Isabella, died 1860. 

Sir Frederick- William Frankland died 1878, aged eighty 
j&ve, and was succeeded by his eldest sui-viving son — 

Sir William-Adolrhus Frankland the ninth baronet. 

In Henry Stooks Smith's Parliaments of England the re- 
presentatives of Thirsk, being members of the allied families 
of Grreenhill, Grreenhill-Russell, Frankland, and Cromptou, 
are invariably marked as Whigs from 1806 doAvnwards 
Previous to that date, their politics are not specified in Mr. 
Smith's work. 



Earldoms of Chichester and Darnley^ and ViscountifoJ 
Midleton. 

Anne Frankland, only daughter and heiress of Frederick 
Meinhardt Frankland Esq. [see page 109] married in 1754 
Thomas Pelham Esq. who succeeded his cousin as second 
Baron Pelham of Stanmer in Sussex, and in 1801 was created 
Earl of Chichester ; dying fom^ years afterwards. The Pel- 
hams of Sussex were an eminently Whig family. There 
were four of the name in the Long Parliament. Peregrine 
Pelham M.P. for Hull was a regicide ; but whether or not 
related to the Sussex family, unknown. Sir Thomas Pelham, 
the member for Sussex and the direct ancestor of the present 
Earl of Chichester, served on the Committee acting in the 



160 I'lrA IlOTSf. 01' CROMWELL. 

Parliumont's belialf for that coimty. Lords^ Jotinials, vil. 
208. Tlionias relliam's childix'n by Anno Fraukland were — 

I. Thomas, second Earl. 

II. Henrietta- Anne, married to George- William 
Leslie, tenth Earl of Ivothes, of whom presently. 

III. Henry, horn 1759, died 1707, having married 
Katharine daughter of Thomas Cobb, Esq. Issue — 
two daughters. — 1. Katharine-Elizabeth- Anne, and — 
2. Fanny, married to Capt. James Hamilton Mm-ray, 
K.N. 

IV. Frances, born 17 GO, married to George fourth 
Viscount Midleton of Ireland; and died 178^3, leaving 
a daughter, Frances-Anne, who became the wife of 
Inigo Freeman Thomas of Ilatten in Sussex Esq. and 
died, s.p. in 1858. 

V. Lucy, Countess to John first Earl of Sheffield, 
d. s.p. 1797. 

VI. Emily, born 17G4. 

VII. George, D.D. Lishop successively of Bristol, 
Exeter, and Lincoln. He married Mary daughter of 
Sir Itichard Hy croft, and d. s.p. 1827. 

Ttio:mas, 2xD Eakl of Chichestek, born 1756. Through- 
out the period of the French llevolution he was Chief Secre- 
tary for Ireland under Lord Camden. As Lord Pelliam in 
the House of Commons he distinguished himself by main- 
taining, in alliance with Mr. (afterwards, Earl) Grey, the 
right of the House to be made acquainted with the merits of 
every case of foreign negociation, as the only means of 
escaping constant warlike complications. On the ground of 
humanity, he was one of those who ui^ged the prosecution of 
Warren Hastings. He married in 1801 Henrietta-Juliana, 
daughter of Francis Godolphin, fifth Duke of Leeds, and left 

ISSUO 

I. Mary, born 1803, died 1860. 

II. Hexry-Tjiomas, third Earl. 

III. Amelia-Hose, married to Major-General Sir 
Joshua Jebb of the lioyal Engineers. 

IV. Frederick-Thomas, liear Admiral E.N. married 
1841 to Ellen-Kate d. of Eowland Mitchell Esq. and 
bad, — 1. Frederick- John. — 2. Frederick-Sidney, Lieut. 
K.N. — 3. Constance-Mary-Kate. — 4. Emily-ljlanche. 
5. Beatrice-Emily-Julia. — 6. Kathleen-Mary-Maud. 

V. John-Tliomas, D.D. Bishop of Norwich ; — mar. 
Henrietta d. of Thomas William Tatton Esq. of 
Wythenshaw, and had issue, — 1. Henry-Francis, of 
Ex. Col. Oxon. mar. 1873, Lnuia-rriscilla, d. of S 



EAKL])OI\t OF flllCIiESTEk. 15X 

Edw. Buxton, bart.— 2. Jolin Barrington, in orders.— 
3. Sidney, B.A.— 4. Herbert. — 5. Fanny. 

VI. Henrietta- Julian a, b. 1813. 

VII. Katharine-Greorgiana,— mar. 1837toLowther- 
Jobn Barrington, rector of Watton. 

VIII. Lucy- Anne, second wife to Sir David Diindas 
of Beecbwood, bart. 

The Earl died in 1826, and was succeeded by bis son, 
Henry-Thomas Pelham, third Earl of Chichester 

born 1804, married 1828 Mary daughter of Eobert sixth 

Earl of Cardigan, and had issue, 

I. Walter-John, Lord Pelham, mar. 1861, Eliza- 
Mary, only d. of the lion. Sir John Duncan-Bligh 

II. Francis- Godolphin, M.A. vicar of St. Mary's 
Beverley, Yorks, mar. Alice Carr, d. of Lord Wol- 
verton, and has,— Joselyn-Brudenel.— liuth Mary.— 
Henry-Ceorge-Grodolphin. 

HI. Thomas-IIeury- William, barrister at law.. 

IV. Arthm^-Lowther. 

V. Harriet-Mary, mar. 1850 to John Stuart Bligh, 
Earl of Darnley in the peerage of Ireland, and Baron 
Chfton m that of England; descended from John 
Bhgh one of Cromwell's agents for the settlement of 
forfeited estates in Ireland. Issue, Edward-IIenry- 
Stuart, Kathleen-Susan-Emma, and other children. 

VI. Susan-Emma, mar. 1853 to Abel Smith' of 
Woodhall park, Herts. 

VII. Isabella- Chnrlotte, mar. 1855 to Samuel 
Whitbread, M.P. for Bedford. 



Earldom of RothcH. 

Henrietta-Anxe. Pelham, eldest daughter of Thomas 
first Earl of Chichester, married 1789 Greorge- William tenth 
Earl of liothes of t\iQ kingdom of Fife, and had, with Ameha 
and Mary who died unmarried, 

Henrietta-Anne, Countess, who in 1806 married George 
G-wyther, on his assumption of the surname and arms of 
Leslie, and had issue : 

I. George- WiLLiAiM Evelyn, eleventh Earl. 

II. Thomas-Jenkins, in tke Army. 

III. Ilenrietta-Anno, wife of Charles-Ivnight Mm-- 
ray, barrister at law. 

IV. Mary-Elizabeth, mar. Martin E. Ilaworth of 
the 60th Ivilles, 



152 THE iiousr: of ckomavki.l. 

y. Anna-Maria, mar. Henry-Hugli Courtenay, 
rector of Mamliead, son of the elevcntli Earl of Devon, 
and had, — Heurj'-Eeginald, and Hugh-Leslie. 

VI. Katharine-Caroline, mar. John Parker, Capt. 
66th Foot. 

The Countess died in 1810 and was succeeded by her son. 

George- William Evelyn, eleventh Earl of Eothes, born 
1809, married Louisa third daughter of Henry Anderson 
Morshead of Widey Cornet, Devon, and left at his death in 
1841, a daughter, Henrietta Anderson Morshead, who even- 
tually became Countess, and an onl}^ son, namely, 

George-William Evelyn, twelfth Earl, who died unmar- 
ried in 18o9, when the family honoiu's devolved upon his 
sister, 

Henrietta- Anderson Morsiiead-Lkslie, Covntess of 
Rothes, and Baroness Leslie and Ballenbreich in the peerage 
of Scotland ; — married, 1861, to the lion. George Walde- 
grave Leslie third son of William eighth Earl of Waldegrave. 

A full history of the Leslies of Rothes would embrace the 
annals of Scotland from the eleventh centmy downwards. 
It must suffice to state that John the fifth Earl, who was at 
first an ardent promoter of Tltc Solemn Lcaijuc and Covenant, 
died an equally ardent partizan of King Charles, — that his 
youthful son and successor, John the sixth Earl, marched 
with Charles II. to Worcester fight, when he was taken 
prisoner and shut up in the Tower, — that at Cromwell's death 
he rejoined the exiled Prince ; and returning in triumph to 
his native coimtry, armed with extraordinary powers, became 
a terrible scourge to the Scottish Covenanters. The marriage 
of a modern Earl of Eothes with a descendant of Frances 
Cromwell fm-nishes a curious instance, among many otliers, 
of the Protector's house being eventually represented by 
names and titles which dming his own life-time were con- 
spicuous in the hostile camp. 



Faniih/ of Gee. 

Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Su- Thomas Fraukland the 
second baronet (see page 110) married Eoger Talbot of 
Woodend in Yorkshire ; whose only daughter, Arabella, or 
Elizabeth ? , became the second wife of Colonel William Gee, 
who fell at Fontenoy in 1743. They had one son, viz. 

Eoger Gee, Esq. of Bishop-Burton, who by his wife 
Caroline, eighth daughter and co-lieir of Sir Warton Peny- 
man Warton, had two daughters, — I. Sarah-Elizabeth, mar- 



, r)r,StF.Xt)A>s'T.S OF FUANCES CKOHlWELL, lo3 

riod to Ileuiy Bolclero Barnard of Cave Castle ; and II. 
Caroline, married to George Hotham of the Guards. Mr. 
Gee died in 1778 and was buried in Bath Abbey — His 
daughters, who wore his co-heirs, sold the Woodend estate to 
the Crompton family. 



Familij of Barnard . 

S \iiATi-Ei,izAi3ETii Gee married Mr. Barnard aforesaid in 
1788 and had smwiving issue, as follows, 

I. Henry-Gee, born 1789, a Captain in the Scots Greys. 

II. Charees-Lewyns, born 1790 ; entered the army in 
his fifteenth year, as Ensign in his uncle General Hotham's 
regiment, and finally became a Captain of the Scots Greys, 
in the troop previously commanded by his elder brother. 
After distinguishing himself in no less than twelve engage- 
ments under the Duke of Wellington, he fell at Waterloo in 
1815. 

III. Edward- William, held the family living of South 
Cave, and died at Chester in 1827, leaving, by his wife, 
Philadelphia - Frances - Esther, daughter of Archdeacon 
Wrangham, three children, namely, — 1. Edward-Charles- 
Gee, born 1822. — 2. Eosamimd. — 3. Caroline. 

IV. Sakaii-Eleanor, married in 1832 to Josci)h, only 
sm'viving son of Samuel Delpratt of Jamaica, and had issue 
one daughter, Eleanor-Josephine. 

Mr. Boldero Barnard died in 1815, — his widow in 1832, — 
and was succeeded by his eldest son Henry Gee Barnard. 



Famih/ of Hotham and harondey of Luhhock. 

Caroline, the second daughter of Roger Gee aforesaid, 
became in 1792 the first wife of Lieut-Col. George Hotham, 
eldest son of General George Hotham, and brother to Admiral 
Lord Hotham. She died in 1811. 

The fate of the two Hothams, father and son, of the Civil 
War period, has for ever given to the family a prominence 
in English history. In more modern days they have fur- 
nished a considerable number of combatants both on land and 
sea, and the name is associated with some of the Nation's 
proudest military traditions. The children of Colonel 
Hotham and Miss Gee were as follows. 

I. William, Hear Admiral, li.N. born 1794, — went to sea 
at the age of ten in the Raisonnable 64, commanded by his 



lo-i THE HOtlSi; 01'' CROMWELL. 

uncle Vice Admiral »Sir William Ilotliam ; — distinguished 
himself at Antwerp, Cadiz, Matagorda, the captiu'e of La 
Permnnc, French store ship, — destroying batteries at Omago 
on the coast of Istria, — storming the fort of Farisina, — 
capturing the batteries of Rovigno, — commanding a flotilla 
on the Po, in co-operation with the Austrian army, — sailing 
in the squadron which escorted Louis XVIII to his restored 
dominions in 1814, &c. 

II. Greorge, a Captain of Engineers, born 1796, died ISGO. 
lie married Caroline daughter of Richard Watt of Bishop- 
Burton Esq., and had two childi-en, Richard, an officer in the 
army ; and Harriet. By his second wife, Amelia, daughter 
of Francis Ramsden llawkesworth, he had Arthur, Francis, 
Alice, and Laura. 

III. Charles, Prebendary of York, married Lucy-Elizabeth, 
daugliter of Rev. Christoi)her Sykes. 

IV. John, in the Artillery, E. I. (]o. — His first wife was 
Maria daughter of Henry Thompson of Burton, Esq. By 
his second, Marj-, daughter of Rev. D. R. Roundell, he hacl, 
— Charles, John, Caroline, Fanny, and Gertrude. 

V. Sarah, married in 182o to >Step]ien Creyke, archdeacon 
of York, and had issue, — Walter-Pennington, — Alexander- 
Stephen. — Alfred-Richard. — Caroline- Julia. — Diana- Jane. — 
Gertrude-Hotham . 

VI. Charlotte, married to Robert Denison Esq. 

VII. Gertrude, married to Rev. Christopher Neville, and 
had issue, a daughter Charlotte, 1831, and a son, George, 
18'33. See below, under "Constable of Wassand," page 157. 

VIII. Diana-Caroline, married in 1841 to Henry-Alex- 
ander Brown, of Kingston Grove, Oxford. 

IX. Plarriet, married in 1833 to Sir John William Lub- 
bock, of Lamas, Co. Norfolk, bart. and had issue, 

1. John, who succeeded to the baronetcy, — M.P. 
for Maidstone,— F.R.S.—D.C.L.—Vice-Chancellor of 
London University, — Hon. Secy, of the London 
bankers, married Ellen-Frances, d. of Rev. Peter 
Horclern ; her children are, — John-Birkbeck, 1858. — 
Norman, 1861. — Rolfe-Arthm^, 1865. — Amy-Harriet. 
— Constance-Mary. — Gertrude. — Florence, who d. 
1868. 

2. Henry-James, 1838.— 3. Neville, 1839. 

4. Beaumont- William, 1840. 

5. Montague, 1842.— 6. Frederick, 1844. 
7. Alfred, 1845.— 8. Edgar, 1847. 

9. Mary-Harriet, mar. 1857, to Robert Birkbeck 
"Esq. 



r.ARONETCY OF LUIJHUCK. 155 

10. Diana- Ilotliam, mar. ISoG to AVilliam V. 
Eodney, cousin of Lord Kodney. 

11. Ilenriotta-IIarrict. 

Familu of JVomlci/, 

FiiAXCEs, second sui^viving daughter of Thomas Franldand 
ihQ second baronet, (see page 110) married in 1710 Tliomas 
Worsley of Hovingham in Yorkshire Esq. AVorsley or 
AVorkesley is a name of remote antiquity, deriving from Sir 
Elias, lord of Worsley near Manchester at the time of the 
Conquest, who accompanied llobert Duke of Normandy to 
the Holy Land, and was buried at Ehodes. 

[The Isle of Wight branch of the Worsleys derives from 
Sn- James Worsley who in the reign of Henry VIII. married 
the heiress of Apuldurcombe, and was the ancestor of Miss 
Bridget Simpson the wife of the late Lord Yarborough.] 

I)y Frances Frankland Mr. Worsley had two sons and fom- 
daughters, as follows. 

I. Thomas, his successor. 

II. James, a clergyman, mar. Dorothy Pennyman, 
and left four children.— James,— Iialph,—Kichard,— 
and Dorothy. A grandchild of Mr. James Worsley 
was James Whyte Pennyman, of Ormesby Hall, 
Yorks, and possibly other names might be successfully 
sought in that direction. 

III. Mary, wife to Marmaduke Constable of "^Vas- 
sand, of whom hereafter. 

IV. Elizabeth, smwived her husband, William 
Slaenforth, Esq. 

V. Katharine, unmarried. 

VI. Frances, married to Sir Thomas Eobinson Lord 
Grantham, of whom hereafter. 

Mr. Thomas Worsley was succeeded by his eldest son, 
Thomas, M. P.— Surveyor-general of the board of works 
under George III, from whom he received many marks of 
favour. He rebuilt the family mansion, and enriched it with 
a library and a gallery of paintings. By his wife Elizabeth 
daughter of Eev. J. Lister he had, besides two dauo-hters 
two sons, viz. ^ ' 

Edward, his successor. 

George, rector of Stonegrave and Scawton, Yorks— 
mar. Anne, d. of Sir Thomas Cayley of Brompton 
bart. and had fifteen children.— 1 and 2, George and 
Edward, died yoimg.— 3, William, succeeded his 
uncle.— 4. Marcus, mar. Miss Harriet Hamer, and had 



loG TIJE IIOrSK OF CKOMWFJJ,. 

issue. — 5, Thomas, rector of Sca-svton. — G, Prederiek- 
r.aylej^ — 7, Septimus-Launcelot, M A of Camlo. — S, 
Hcnr3'-Franeis, mar. Catharine, d. of L. Blackden 
]']sq. and had issue. — 9, Charles- Valentine, har. at law. 
— 10, Arthiu', of the 51st Eeg. of Native Infantry in 
India. — 11, Digby-Edmund. — 12, Isabella, mar. 
J. C. Blackden Esq. and had several children. — 13, 
Philadelphia, mar. Will. J. Coltman, M.A. Oxon.— 
14, Anne. — 15, Frances, mar G. II. Webber, preben- 
dary of Eipon. 
Edward Worsi-ey was the next heir, but dying unmar- 
ried in 1830, was succeeded by his nephew, 

William Worsi,ey, M.A. St. John's Col. Camb. — many 
years in the Hussar Yeomaniy corps of his relation Lord de 
Grey ; and a magistrate and deputy lieutenant in the North 
Ividing. In 18'27 he married Sarah-Philadelphia, daughter 
of Sir George Cayley of Brompton, Yorks. bart. and had 
issue, 

I. Thomas Pobinson. — II. William-Cayley. — III. 
Sophia-Harriet. — IV. Arthington. — V. Katharine- 
Louisa. — VI. Anna-Barbara. 



FdHuIi/ of Const able of Wco^saiid. 

Mary, eldest daughter of Frances Frankland and Thomas 
Worsley (see page 155) married Marmadidce Constable of 
Wassand near Hull, Esq. The " Wass and Constable " race 
have always held high position in the northern counties. 
From Itobert de Lacy Constable of Chester in 1206 down to 
Robert Constable of 1701, twenty eight members of the 
family have been high Sheriffs of York. During the Civil 
war of Charles I.'s time, the house of Constable, like many 
others, was a divided one. Sir William, the Flamborough 
baronet and the representative of the elder branch, sat for 
Knaresborough in the Long Parliament ; and having married 
a daughter of the house of Fairfax, became associated with 
them in war. His personal hostility to the King's measures, 
especially in the matter of Ship-money, had already resulted 
in imprisonment ; and declared itself more fully when he 
joined in signing the warrant for Charles's execution. Judg- 
ing by the large sums passing through his hands, he must 
have been much in the Parliament's confidence. In 1643 he 
was actually proposed for the command in chief under Fair- 
fax ; — in 1648 he was one of the Council of State. As a 
regicide he was excepted out of the Bill of Pardon ; and 



FAMILY OF C0XSTAJ5LE. 157 

Having died during the Protectorate, his estates fell under 
confiscation. On the other hand there are several of the 
Constables discernable among the lloj'-alists, to wit, Sir 
Philip of Everingham, Sidney, William, Matthew, and John, 
besides " Ealph Constable " whose composition-fine was 
£70. 13. 4. Of the " Marmaduko Constable of Wassand " 
of that period, nothing distinctivo (beyond his marriage) is 
recorded. The children of Mary Frankland by Mr. Constable 
were as follows — 

I. Makmaduke, his heir. 

II. Thomas, a clergyman, married Sarah daughter of 
Charles Goulton Esq. and had 

1. Charles, heir to his uncle Marmaduke. 

2. Marmaduke, mai'ried 1807, Octavia, d. of 
General Hale ;— no issue. 

o. Rachel-Marian, mar. 1808, James Salmond Esq. 
Their son Edward, d. s. p. 1821. 

4. Frances-Elizabeth, mar. 1814, Will. Bentinck, 
preb. of Westminster, eldest son of Lord Edw. Charles 
Cavendish Bentinck. 

5. Sarah, died young. 

III. Mary, married to Jonathan Ackloni of Wiseton, 
Notts, Esq., by whom she had one son and four daughters, 
viz. — 1. Kichard. — Anne-Elizabeth. — Mary. — Lucy, — who 
married her cousin Charles Constable, see below. — and Rosa- 
mund. The eldest daughter, Anne-Elizabeth, was the wife 
of Christopher Neville of Thorney, and the mother of two 
sons, Christopher and George, the elder of Avliom married 
Gertrude daughter of Lieut- Col. Hotham of York, and had a 
daughter Charlotte, 1831, and a son George, 1833. 

IV. Rosamund, died unmarried, in 1801. 

Mr. Constable dying in 1762, aged 58, was succeeded 
by his elder son. 

Marmaduke, who died unmarried in 1812, was succeeded 
by his nephew, 

CiiAiiLEs, M. A. and a clergyman, also in the commission of 
the peace for the three Ridings of Yorks. On succeeding to 
the family estates, he built a new house in place of the man- 
sion which had stood since 1530. He married his cousin 
Lucy daughter of Jonathan Acklom, and had an only child, 
Mary, who in 1818 married George, eldest son of Sir William 
Strickland of Boynton, bart. 



158 TIIK ]l()\iSE Ol- CKOMWKLL. 



The Fannhj of Strichland 

Profess to derive from tlie district or township of Strick- 
land in Westmoreland, berore the Norman conquest. Span- 
ning the next fi^'e centuries, we hail AVilliam Strickland who 
accompanied Sebastian Cabot to America, and whoso portrait 
is preserved at Boynton. The gallant adventurer's grand- 
children, Sir AVilliam and Walter, sat in Cromwell's Upper 
House as Lord Strickland and Lord Walter Strickland. 
George Strickland, who married Mary Constable aforesaid, 
and who in 18''34 succeeded his father as seventh baronet, had 
issue as follows, 

I. Chahi.es-William, eighth baronet. 

II. Frederick, born 1820", died 1849. 

III. Henry-Strickland-Constable, of Wassand, who took 
by royal licence the additional surname of Constable, married 
Cornelia-Charlotte-Anne, daughter of Lieut. Col. Henry and 
Lady Sophia Lmnaresq. [See " Lanesborough " in the 
Peerage] and had issue, 

1. Frederick-Charles, 18G0. — 2. Marmaduke. 

3. Ethel. — 4. Mary-Sophia. 

5. Eosamund. — 6. Lucy- Winifred. 
lY. Lucy-Henrietta, the wife of J. P. Marriott, after- 
wards Goulton-Constable of Cotesbach. Tliey botli died in 
1871. 

Sir George Strickland died in 1874, and was succeeded by 
his eldest son, 

Sir Chahles-Wtlliam Strickland, eighth baronet ; bar- 
rister at law, born 1819, married first Georgina-Selina-Sep- 
timia, daughter of Sir William Milner of Nun-Appleton, 
bart. and by her, who d. 18G4, has a son, Walter- William. 
He mar. secondly, Anne-Elizabeth, d. of Pev. Christopher 
Neville of Thorney, Notts, and has issue, — 1. Frederick, 
1868.— 2. Eustace-Edward, 1870.— 3. Henry, 1873.— 4. 
Esther- Anne. 



FamUy of Rohinson, and titles of Grantham, Be Greij, Cowper, 
Goderich, and Ripon. 

Frances, fourth daughter of Thomas Worsley (see page 
150) married, about 173G, her cousin Sir Thomas Pobinsor, 
who after her decease becanio the first Baron Grantham j'n 
the county of lincoln. [The Sir The. Robinson of Pokeby 
who figures in BosAvell's Johnson was distinguished from this 



LOUD GllANTUAM. lOO 

knight as " Ling Sir Thomas."] IIo was soeonJ son to Sir 
Tancretl EoLinson, rear-admiral of the white, and twice Lord 
Mayor of York. lie commenced his political career as 
►Secretary to Sir Horace Walpole wlien aniljassador in France, 
and attained his peerege hi 1701. His lady had died in 17'30. 
Their children were, 

I. Tiio:mas, his successor. 

II. Frederick, married Katharine- Gertrude Harris, 
sister to the first Earl of Malmeshury, 

III. Theresa, married John ]\irker, first Ijord 
Boringdon, of whom hereafter. 

Lord Grantham died in 1770, and was succeeded by liis 
elder son, 

Tno:siAs, second Barox Graxtiiam, married in 1780 
Mary- Jemima, second daughter and co-heiress of Philip 
Yorke second Earl Hardwicke by Jemima Marchioness I)e 
Grey, and sister and heir presumptive of Amabel Countess 
De Grey, by whom he left two sons, namely, 
Tiiomas-Philip, Earl De Grey. 
Frederick- JoHX, Vise omit Goderich and Earl Eipon, 
^^ilo, \^'itll his lad}', Sarali-Louisa-Albinia Hobart, 
only daughter of liob. fourth Earl of Bucks, inherited 
the property of that nobleman. His children, besides 
a son who died in infancj^, were, George-Frederick- 
Samuel, his successor, — and Eleanor-Henrietta- 
Victoria, who died young. His lordship's political 
life will be given at the end of this family history, 
Thomas, second baron Grantham died in 1780, and was 
sacceecled by his elder son, 

THOMAs-FiiiLir Earl De Grea', Baron Lucas of Crud- 
well in Wilts, and Baron Grantham : — Commander of the 
Yorkshire Hussars ; Lord Lieutenant and Custos Itotulorum 
of Bedfordsliire, in which comity he inherited the Wrest 
estate from his aunt Amabel Countess De Grey ; and Lord 
Lieutenant of Ireland under Sir Robert BeeFs administration 
1841-44. The Earl's political bias, whatever it was, had 
not prevented him on a previous occasion from advocating the 
cause of the oppressed. This was in the matter of the juclicial 
enquiry into the conduct of George IV's Clueen, Caroline of 
Brunswick ; Avhen, as Lord Grantham, together with other 
I'eers, he openly recorded his disa]»proval of tlie Bill of I*ains 
and Penalties, though put in ex(.;cution by the Ministry of 
■\\hich his brother 1^'rederick Ilobinson was a member. In 
private life. Earl De Grey was a liberal patron of the deco- 
rative sciences,, and is said to have hiiiiself exhibited tne 
skill of a painter, lie certainly made an e.\:tcnsive and tasteful 



160 THE HOUSE OF CRO>nNi;LL. 

collection of works of art. Of tlie various portraits taken 
of him from time to time, a resemblance to his ancestor the 
Protector seems traceable in the quarto engraving after John 
AVood's picture, executed when he must have been in the 
prime of life ; though the same can hardly be said of that by 
iSir Thomas Lawrence. Earl De (jrey married in 1805 
Henrietta-Frances Cole, daughter of William fii-st Earl of 
Enniskillen, and, besides a son who died in infancy, had two 
surviving daughters, 

I. Anne-Florence, Baroness Lucas, married in 
1833 to George-Augustus-Erederick, sixth Earl 
Cowper, of whom presently. 

II. Mary-Gertrude, married in 1832 to Captain 
Henry Yyner, of whom presently. 

Earl De Grey died in 1859, when he was succeeded in his 
barony of Lucas by his daughter Lady Cowper, and in his 
other titles by his nephew the Earl of Ripon, here fol- 
lowing, 

Sill Geouge-Frederick-Samuel Eobixsox, born 1827, 
succeeded his father as Earl of Eipon and Viscoimt Godcrich ; 
and his uncle as Earl De Grey, Baron Grantham, and a 
baronet. Previous to this he had been M.P. in succession 
for Hull, Huddersfield, and the West Riding. In 1859 he 
was Under-Secretary for War. He married Henrietta- Anne- 
Theodosia, eldest daughter of Captain Henry Vyner and 
granddauffhter of the late Earl De Grey, and had issue, Fre- 
derick-Oliver, Lord Do Grey, born 1852, — and Mary-Sarah, 
who died in 1858. 

Earldotti of Cuirper. 

Anne-Florence, elder daughter of Earl De Grey, who 
mai'ried George- Augustus-Frederick, sixth Earl Cowper and 
Lord-Lieut, of Kent, had issue as follows, 

I. Francis-Thomas De Grey, who in 1856 succeeded his 
father as seventh Earl, and also as a Prince of tlio Holy 
Roman Empire. He subsequently married Katrine-Cecilia, 
daughter of Lord William Compton. 

II. Henry-Frederick, M.P. for Herts. 

III. Henrietta-Emily-MMy, died 1853. 

IV. Florence- Amabel, married in 1871 to the lion. Auberon 
Herbert. 

V. Adine-Eliza-Anne, married to Julian Fane fourth son 
of John, eleventh Earl of Westmoreland, and died 1868. 

VI. Amabel, married in 1873 to Lord Walter Kerr, R.N. 
son of the late Marquis of I^othian, and has issue. 



iAKL of Rll'ON. 161 



Family of Vyner. 

Mary-Gertrude, younger daughter of Earl De Grey, was 
married in 1832 to Captain Henry Yyner son of Rotert 
Vyner of Gautby and his wife the Lady Theodosia-Maria 
Ashburnham and had six children as follows, 

I. Henry-Frederick-Olare, 1836. 

IT. Reginald- Arthur, M.P. for Ripon, died 1870. 

III. Robert-Charles, married 1865 to Eleanor, daughter of 
Rev. Slingsby-Duncombe Shafto. 

IV. Frederick-Grantham, murdered by brigands in Greece, 
21 April 1870. 

V. Henrietta-Anne-Theodosia, present Marchioness of 
Ripon, having married her cousin Sir George Robinson, 
afterwards Earl of Ripon and De Grey. 

VI. Theodosia, Marchioness of Northampton, died 1864. 



THE EARL OF RIPON. 

Although several of Oliver Cromwell's descendants have 
proved themselves able statesmen, Frederick-John Robinson 
is the only one who has reached the position of Prime 
Minister. It is true he held that ambitious post but a very 
few weeks, nor can he be said to have shed much lustre on 
any of the numerous offices which from time to time he filled 
under at least half-a dozen different administrations. Still it 
must be admitted that the responsible nature of those offices 
argues the respect and confidence of his contemporaries ; and 
if he proved himself incapable of leadership, he at least es- 
caped the usual inheritance of malice. The people too felt 
kindly towards him, for they believed that his intentions 
were good ; and when once accepted as an advanced Whig, 
he suffocated the public neither with the cant nor with the re- 
cant of his patriotism. 

Born in London in 1782, and losing his father very soon 
after, he was educated at Harrow and at Cambridge where 
he obtained Sir William Browne's medal for the best Latin 
ode, and took his degree in the following year. He began 
public life as Secretary to his Tory relation Lord Hardwicke 
then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland ; till the death of Pitt made 
way for the coalition of " All the Talents." On the appoint- 
ment of the next Ministry, that of the Duke of Portland in 
1807, Mr. Robinson as Member for Ripon (which he con- 
tinued to represent for twenty years) voted as a Tory ; and 



162 THE HOUSE OF CROMWELL. 

forthwith we find him Under Secretary for the Colonies in 
Mr. Percevfil's administration ; from and after which date he 
passed from one post of duty to another, always to a higher, 
giving evidence of versatile capacity and plodding industry, 
till his utmost powers were taxed as Chancellor of the Ex- 
checjuer, and over-taxed as First Lord of the Treasury and 
Prime Minister. All this while he had been more and more 
associated with Canning and Huskisson, and thereby came 
to share the confidence and hopes which the country reposed 
in those two illustrious names as representing the Whig 
element in Lord Liverpool's long and dreary administration. 
When this state of things at last came to an end by Lord 
Liverpool's illness in 1827, — when Greorge IV. responded to 
the popular voice by accepting Greorge Canning as the suc- 
ceeding Premier, — and when within forty-eight hours of that 
event, the new Minister was stunned by the resignation of 
seven of his old Tory colleagues, — then was it seen that 
Frederick Pobinson liad cast in his lot with the party whom 
the spell of their leader's genius had once and for ever 
divorced from the feudal tyrannies. Under that leader's 
regis he took the office of Colonial Secretary, and was 
elevated to the peerage as Viscount Goderich, a title pre- 
viously borne by his maternal ancestor the last Didie of 
Kent of the family of De Grray. At this period in his 
history it is evident that more was expected from him than 
his antecedents warranted ; and when, four months later, on 
Mr. Canning's death, he was entrusted with the task of 
carrying on the same or a similar Ministry, he found the 
discordant elements of which it was composed beyond his 
powers of pacification. His Cabinet in fact was broken up 
before it had a single opportunity of facing the Parliament ; 
having enjoyed a shorter term even tlian that of his pre- 
decessor. Three years later, the name of Viscount Groderich 
re-appears in Lord Grey's Eeform Administration, but he 
had now ceased to be a star in the political firmament ; and 
he gradually withdrew from public notice until, as Earl 
Ripon, he died at his seat on Putney Heath in 1859 in his 
seventy-seventh year. 

The first great measure which Mr. Eobinson as Vice- 
President of the Board of Trade submitted to Parliament, 
was the notorious Corn-bill of 1815, i:)rohibiting the importa- 
tion of wheat when the price was below 80 shillings a 
quarter. And almost his last public act was to move in the 
House of Lords the second reading of Sir Eobert Peel's Bill 
of 1846, obliterating that measure, and stultifying the 
doctrines and prophecies of thirty years of protection. In 



EARL OF MOKLEY. 163 

doing so, Lord Ripon took occasion to observe that his ac- 
tion in 1815 had b^en that of a subordinate of tlie Govern- 
ment, and that he executed his function with personal 
reluctance. And true it is that he was not what is termed a 
Member of the Cabinet in 1815, and may therefore be con- 
sidered as having played an executive rather than a 
deliberative part. Are we to accept a similar explanation of 
his conduct in reference to the "Bill of Pains and Penalties" 
which the same Ministry six years later arrayed against 
Queen Caroline ? Or must we lament that he had not the 
fortitude at that crisis to cast in his lot with Mr Canning ? 

Two years later, Mr. Robinson succeeded Nicholas Van- 
sittart in the Ministry of Finance. He is said to have made 
a much pleasanter Chancellor of the Exchequer than his 
predecessor, and to have displayed a seeming dexterity in 
getting through a budget-speech, whereas Mr. Yansittart 
always bungled it. But we cannot forget that in this now 
capacity he had to encounter the constant sarcasms of Mr. 
Joseph Hume inside the House, and of William Cobbett 
outside ; the first charging him with arithmetical absurdities, 
the latter fixing upon him the sobriquet of " Prosperity 
Robinson," for the roseate hues with which he seemed ever 
resolved to gild a wasted Treasury. 



Family of Parher and titles of Boriinjdon and Morleij, 

Theresa, only daughter of Thomas first Lord Grrantham, 
see page 159, became in 1769 the second wife of Jolm Parker, 
M.P. for the county of Devon, afterwards created Baron 
Boringdon in that county. His children by Lady Theresa 
were John his successor, and a daughter, Theresa, married to 
hon. George Villiers, of whom presently. Lord Boringdon 
died 1788, and was succeeded by his son, 

John, born 1772, created Earl of Morley in 1815. He 
married, first, Augusta daughter of John Earl of Westmore- 
land, by whom he had one son [Jolm ?] who in 1816, at the 
age of eleven, met his death at St. Maud near Paris, through 
inadvertently swallowing a stalk of rye three inches in length. 
It caused the youthful sufferer much distress before termina- 
ting fatally, and at a post-mortem examination was found 
undigested in his intestines. There was thus no surviving 
issue from this first marriage, whiclr marriage had moreover 
been previously dissolved by Act of Parliament, in 1809; the 
Countess being afterwards married to Sir Arthur Paget, while 
the Earl had for his second wife Frances daughter of Thomas 



164 THE IIOrSE OF CKOMWELT.. 

Talbot of Gronville in Norfolk, by whom be left at bis decease 
in 1840 a son, 

Edmund Parker, second Earl of Morley, and Viscount 
Boringdon of North Molton in Devon ; married in 1842 
Harriet-Sophia, only daughter of Montague-Edmund Parker 
Esq. of Whiteway, Devon ; and had issue, Albert-Edmund 
and Emily-Katharine. His lordship died in 1864 and was 
succeeded by his son, 

Ali5ert-Edmund Parker third Earl of Morley, M.A. 
Oxon, Ex.-lieut. South Devon militia, married in 1876 
Margaret eldest daughter of Robert-Stayner Holford of 
Weston Birt in Glostershire, and Dorchester House in Park 
lane, and has issue. 



Family of Villicys, nnd titles of Hyde and Clarendon, Lytton 
and Skelnicrsdale. 

Theresa, only daughter of John, first Lord Boringdon, 
see page 163, married in 1798 George third son of Thomas 
Yillicrs Earl of Clarendon, and died in 1855. Her children 
were, 

I. Greorge- William-Frederick, successor to his uncle the 
third Earl of Clarendon. 

II. Thomas-Hyde, died 1832. 

III. The riglit hon. Charles Pelham Villiers, born 1802, 
M.A. Cantab, barrister at law, late Judge Advocate general, 
and a Privy Coimcillor ; President of the Poor law board, 
1859, M.P. for Wolverhampton ever since 1835 ; Deputy 
lieutenant for Herts. Finally, and here his fame principally 
rests, he was Chairman of tlie ever-memorable Anti-Comlaw- 
League. While Colonel ThomjDson, Dr. Bowring, George 
Wilson, Pichard Cobden, and John Bright, worked the ques- 
tion out of doors, to Mr. Villiers was assigned the more 
trying task of fighting the battle of free trade against his 
own order, — against the entire aristocratic phalanx, whether 
Whig or Tory. While therefore we wonder not that, as the 
reward of his well sustained fortitude, he should ever enjoy 
a fixed and abiding place in the esteem of the mercantile 
classes and in the affections of the labouring classes, it were 
equally true to add that his merits have long received the 
like homage from eminent members of his own class. In the 
summer of 1879 a colossal statue of the veteran statesman 
was erected in the town which he had represented for forty 
four years. Earl Granville unveiled it, in the presence of a 
vast assembly, among whom were Lord Wrottesley the lord- 



FAMILY OF LISTER. 165 

lieutenant of tlie County, Sir Kobert Peel, Sir Charles Forstor, 
Mr. Staveley Hill, Mr. F. Monckton, and Mr. "Weguelin. 
The figure which is nine feet high, executed in Sicilian 
marble, and raised on a pedestal of Aberdeen granite, is the 
work of William Tlieed, and is one of the best performances 
of that able artist, the likeness being admirable, and the pose 
easy and characteristic. 

lY. Edward-Ernest, born 1806, married in 1835 to Eliza- 
beth-Charlotte Liddel, fifth daughter of Lord Eavensworth, 
and died 1843, leaving issue, — 1. Ernest, b. 1838. — 2. Maria- 
Theresa, mar. 1864 to Capt. Earl of the Kifle brigade. — 3 
and 4. Edith and Elizabeth, twins. Edith mar. Sir Edward 
Bulwer Lytton, of whom presently. 

V. Henry-Montague, D.D. B.A. of Chi-istchurcli Oxon, 
born in 1813. Lord Chancellor Cottenham presented him to 
the vicarage of Kenilworth, and when Dr. T. Vowler Short 
was advanced to the bishoprick of Sodor and Man, Dr. 
Villiers succeeded Dr. Short at St. George's Bloomsbury. In 
1847 he was nominated by Lord John Russell, then Prime 
Minister, to a canon-residentiary in St. Paul's Cathedral. Ii. 
1856 Lord Palmerston advanced him to the bishoprick of 
Carlisle, worth £4500 a year ; his promotion culminating at 
Durham, when Dr. Longley attained the archbishoprick of 
York. The money value of Dm-ham was then estimated at 
£8000 a year, with a considerable patronage attached. Ho 
married in 1837 Amelia-Maria, eldest daughter of William 
Hulton of Hulton-park, Lancashire, and had issue, 

1. Henry-Montague, M.A. rector of Adisham, mar. 
Victoria, second d, of Earl Eussell, and has — Henry- 
Montague. — John Pussell. — Thomas Lister. — another 
son. — Frances- Adelaide. — Gr uendolen-Mary. — lihoda- 
Victoria. — Margaret-Evel yn. — Dorothy. — Mabel- 
Agatlia. — Katharine-Helen . 

2. Frederick Ernest, born 1840. 

3. Amy-Maria, mar. Rev. Edw. Cheese. 

4. Gertrude-Fanny. — 5. Mary-Agneta. 
6. Evelyn-Theresa. 

YI. Augustus- Algernon, of the Royal Navy, died 1834. 

YII. Maria-Theresa, man-ied in 1830 to Thomas-Henry 
Lister, Esq. of Armitage park, co. Stafford. This was a case 
of both husband and wife being alike eminent for authorship . 
Mr. Lister, whose poetic tastes were hereditary, and who was 
himself commonly cited as "the author of Gmuhij" and 
other works of fancy, became conspicuous moreover as a 
statist and as an historian, as specially shown in his Life and 
correspondence of Edward Hyde first Earl of Clarendon, in 



THE HOUSE OF CROMWELL. 

3 vols ; — Mrs. Lister at the same time exhibiting {inter alia) 
a graceful and artistic facility in illustrating the same period 
of English history. The 12mo edition of Gmnhy contains an 
elaborate portrait of the author. Mr. Lister dying in 1842, 
his widow re-married Sir George Cornewall Lewis, see page 
129. The children of her first marriage were, 

1. The hon. Thomas Villiers Lister, of Armitage 
Hill, Sunninghill, and 61 Eaton Square, — born 1832, 
— mar. first Eanny-Harriet, d. of Will. Coryton, Esq. 
of Pentillie in Cornwall, and had, — George-Coryton, 
1863, with three other sons and three daughters. He 
mar. secondly, 1877, Florence-Selina, d. of Will. 
John Hamilton, Esq. and has a daughter. Mr. Lister, 
who was educated at Harrow and Trin. Col. Camb. 
(M.A. 1853), is a Dep. -Lieut, for co. Eadnor, and 
Assistant Under Sec. of State for foreign affairs. 

2. Maria-Theresa, mar. Mr. (now Sir) William 
Yernon-Harcom-t, M.P. and died 1863, leaving one 
son, Lewis-Reginald. 

3. Alice-Beatrice, mar. Algernon Borthwick, Esq. 
of 60 Eaton Place, and has two children. 

The Lister family is one of long standing and celebrity in 
the northern counties, whose senior branch, now represented 
by Lord Pibblesdale, is reputed to have been seated at Gisburn 
in the West liiding for five centuries or more. During the 
period of the great Civil War, their leading members were 
prominent as patriots. The name of Thomas Lister (of 
Westby) the direct ancestor of the present owner of Ainnytage 
park, appears on the committee acting in the Parliament's 
behalf for the county of Lincoln, Lords' Journals vii. 207, 
while Sir William Lister and Sir Martin Lister perform the 
like office for the West Riding, Ibid. vii. 444. [This latter 
is presumably the knight of Bm-well in Lincolnshire who was 
father to Dr. Mai'tin Lister, Uueen Anne's physician, and 
ancestor to Matthew Hemy Lister of Burwell park, the 
modern representative of that branch.] Of John Lister, 
ancestor of the present Listers of Shibden-hall, Yorks, we 
are informed that he had to suffer a penalty for not attending 
to receive knighthood at Charles I's coronation. Is this the 
same gentleman who afterwards bore the title of Sir John 
Lister as member for Hull in the Long Parliament ? If so, 
how did he acquire his knighthood after all ? [The signa- 
tm-e in receipt of his fine is that of Wentworth Earl of 
Strafford.] 

There were three Listers in the Long Parliament, — Sir 
John just mentioned, Sir William who sat for East Retford, 



FAMILY OF JJSTER. 



167 



and Thomas Lister aforesaid who represented the city of 
Lincoln. This last mentioned gentleman was one of the 
Commissioners nominated to judge the King ; hut though he 
attended four of their sittings, he abstained from signing the 
death-warrant ; and to this redeeming circumstance it is 
supposed that he owed his escape from the penalty of con- 
fiscation when Charles 11. returned. 

As the principal families engaged in that struggle were 
almost invariably divided, it were strange indeed if so prolific a 
house as that of the Listers had not furnished one member 
conspicuous in the royalist camp. Such a name therefore we 
liave to chronicle in the person of John Lister of Kirkby- 
Malzeard, Yorks, gentleman, whose fine in Dring's List of 
Conipoundcrs stands at <£122. 

The memorial of another individual of that period, and 
presumably of the same race, has also come down to us, — well 
worth preservation as a picture of the life, manners, and 
reflections, of the common people, in presence of those un- 
quiet scenes. The book was published by Thomas Wright 
the Antiquary in 1842, and entitled " The Autobiography 
of Joseph Lister, of Bradford in Yorkshire, to which is added 
a contemporary account of the defence of Bradford and cap- 
tm-e of Leeds by the Parliamentarians in 1642." A principal 
feature in the volume is the career of the writer's son, the 
nonconformist minister of Kipping, who bore the odd name 
of "Accepted Lister." Father and son died simultaneously 
in 1709.* Mr. Wright is allied to the family by descent. 



* " About this time," says wor- 
thy Joseph Lister, " that is, about 
the years 1639-41, p/hen many 
good ministers and christians 
among the puritans, as they were 
called at the time, reflected upon 
the times with many sad and fore- 
boding thoughts, concluding that 
popery was like to be set up, and 
the light of the gospel be put out, 
many ministers were silenced and 
great numbers were posting away 
to New England ; and sad appre- 
hensions remained with those that 
stayed behind. 

Oh what fasting and praying, 
publickly and privately, what 
wrestling with God was there day 
and night. Many of those weep- 
ing, praying, and wrestling sea- 
sons, were kept in my dear 



mother's house ; and the fasts 
were kept with great strictness 
and severity, not any of us, old or 
young, eating so much as a morsel 
of bread for twenty-four hours 
together ; which was a great 
weariness to me, and went much 
against my carnal heart, fool and 
wretch that I was ; with shame 
and grief would I think of it. 

In the year 1G41, the rebellion 
in Ireland broke out, and many 
thousand protestants of all ages, 
sexes, and degrees, were put to 
death with great inhumanity and 
cruelty ; and great fear came upon 
the protestants in England, those 
villains giving it out that what 
they had done there was by the 
King's commission, and that in a 
littje time the English protestants, 



168 



TIIK HOUSE OF CROMWELL. 



George- Willl\m-Frederick, Earl of Clarendon and 
Baron Hyde of Hindon in Wilts, K.a.— G.C.B.— P.O.— 

D.C.L. born in 1800, succeeded as fourth Earl on the decease 
of his uncle in 1838. From an early period Mr. Yilliers 
selected diplomacy as his special sphere, being only twenty 
years old when lie was attached to the embassy at Constanti- 
nople. After the second devolution in France of 1830, he 
went to that country to arrange a commercial treaty ; and 
became still more conspicuous by his residence in Spain as 
Lord Grey's envoy during the period of the civil war between 
the Carlists and the Christines. He never concealed his pre- 
ference for the people's party ; and when the success of the 
Christinos had confirmed his own popularity, he used the 
influence so acquired for the advancement of liberty in other 
forms than in the mere establishment of Uueen Isabella's 
throne ; — negociating among other schemes, a treaty for the 
more effectual suppression of the slave-trade In George 



or heretics as they called them, 
should drink of the same cup. 
Oh, what fears and tears, cries and 
prayers, was there then in many 
places. I remember one jiublic 
fast-day (Mr. Wales kept many at 
Pudsey, it was two miles from 
Bradford, and thither my pious 
mother and all the family went 
constantly upon those days. I 
have known that holy Mr. Wales 
spend six or seven hours in pray- 
ing and preaching, and rarely go 
out of the pulpit. Sometimes he 
would intermit for one quarter of 
an hour while a few verses of a 
psalm were sung, and then pray 
and preach again. And oh what 
confession of sin did he make ! 
what tears and groans were to be 
seen 'and heard in that chapel. I 
am sure it was a place of weepers.) 
But that day, I say, which I am 
speaking of, about three o'clock 
iu the afternoon, a man named 
John Sugdcn came and stood in 
the chapel-door and cried out in a 
lamentable voice, Friends we are 
all as good as dead men ; the Irish 
rebels are coming, and are as far 
as Rochdale and Littlebrough and 
the Eatings, and will be at Halifax 



and Bradford shortly ; and hav- 
ing given us this report, away 
he ran towards Br.idford. Mr. 
Wales desired the congregation to 
compose themselves as well as 
they could, while he put himself 
and them into the hands of Al- 
mighty God by prayer, and so dis- 
missed us. 

Well, we got home, and found 
our friends and neighbours in the 
same case as ourselves, expecting 
the cut-throats coming. At last, 
some few horsemen were pre- 
vailed ,'with to go to Halifax to 
know how the case stood. It 
proved to be only some protest- 
ants that were escaping out of 
Ireland for their lives into Eng- 
land ; and this news we received 
with great joy, and spent the re- 
sidue of that night in praises and 
thanksgivings to God." [^slightly 
abridged. 2 Such was the aspect 
which those times bore to our 
honest forefathers in the pro- 
vinces. Clarendon says it was 
the puritan ministers who misled 
the people of England. Who 
then, it may be asked, were the 
ministers who misled the Irish 
rebels V 



EAllL OF CLAllENDON. 1G9 

Borrow's Bible in Spain an instance is recorded of his prompt 
solicitude to relieve individual suffering. Mr. Borrow had 
been thrown into prison l)y the Spanish authorities for open- 
ing a shop for the sale of Bibles. He appealed to the English 
ambassador, and Mr. A^illiers immediately paid him a visit, 
lieard his own explanation of the affair, and then hastening to 
the Spanish minister, at once procured his countryman's 
release. Succeeding to the Earldom, he came to England in 
1839 to take his place in the House of Peers, and, as Lord 
Privy Seal, to strengthen the ]\Ielbourne administration ; but 
the days of that Cabinet were already numbered, and the 
advent of Sir- Robert Peel shut him out of office for another 
five yeai'S. But the interval was well improved. He 
executed, in conjunction with his brother Charles, the Chair- 
man of the Anti-Cornlaw-League, a very important part in 
furthering Sir Robert Peel's liepeal Bill of 1840 ; and thus it 
happened that the dislocation of the Conservative party con- 
sequent on that measure made way for the return of tha 
"Whigs. And now Lord Clarendon, as Viceroy of Ireland, 
had to take part in another civil Avar, though on a much 
smaller scale than that of Spain. His policy throughout the 
affair was at once conciliatory and magnanimous, but the 
details of his government cannot here be displayed, and a 
recital of the following lines which appeared at the time must 
take the place of narrative : — 

Cromwell, when Irish treason raised its head, 
Struck but one blow, and laid the monster dead. 
Cromwellian blood still flows in Villiers' veins 
Though milder councils yet his arm restrains. 
Victorious still, let England seek to efface 
The sense of antient wrongs by acts of grace. 
The seeds of everlasting concord sow 
By rendering justice to a prostrate foe. 

From the Earl's peacefid triumphs in L-eland we pass on 
at once to his important agency in Erance dui-ing the Crimean 
War. 

This was a post which brought into requisition all the ex- 
periences of his past life, to which the suavity of his manners 
and the goodness of his heart were, under the circumstances 
of the hour, added qualifications of the utmost value. If it 
were too much to sa,y that no other Englishman could have 
supplied his place, it will probably be admitted that none 
could more ably have forwarded the views of Napoleon III. 
Whether or not he was constitutionally in love with the policy 
which united \is to France and converted om- antient alliance 



170 THE HOUSE OF CROMWEI.L. 

with Russia iuto a deadly feud, he certainly had much to do 
in saving the novel treaty from collapse, and in meeting or 
mollifying the jealousies which could not fail to find utterance 
among our older rivals the French. It may suffice to say 
that tlio part which he fulfilled on that occasion was regarded 
by his friends as a triumph of diplomatic art ; and with this 
tribute to his executive skill, the memory of that inglorious 
and unhappy war may be dismissed. Lord Clarendon's latest 
appointment to office was under Mr. Gladstone in 1868, and 
his death eighteen months after was felt to be a great blow 
to the stability of that Cabinet. All parties in fact were 
willing to leave foreign affairs in his hands, and the Tories 
had once and again courted his co-operation with that object 
in view. But he adhered to his old Whig traditions, though 
his personal friendships easily overleaped such artificial limits, 
and though a daughter of his house was allied to one of Lord 
Derby's sons. To this latter fact Lord Derby made graceful 
allusion when in the House of Lords, on the day of Lord 
Clarendon's death, he recorded with touching eloquence the 
virtues and shining qualities of a man from whom he had 
differed in politics, but whose character he amply appre- 
ciated. 

The following anecdote, pointing to the period when Louis 
Napoleon was resident in England previous to his elevation 
to empire, was published by the French Figaro, probably 
without the expectation that it would be credited beyond the 
circle of Parisian gossip. In 1847 Lord Clarendon received 
the visit of an exiled I'rince. " My lord," said his visitor, 
" I come straight to the point. I am in want of £20,000, 
which I will return to you, should the dream of my life 
become realized." His lordship, without wasting a word, 
gave the Prince a letter to his banker. Three years later, 
the dream was realized ; and the borrower told the English 
lord that the sura was at his disposal ; adding, with a smile, 
— "As to the interest . . . ." — " That," his friend answered, 
" we can talk of hereafter." In 1860 the adjustment of their 
mutual obligations took the form of a Treaty of Commerce 
between France and England. Af/ioueum. 

Lord Clarendon married in 1839 Lady Katharine, 
daughter of Walter-James, first Earl of Verulam and ^Wdow 
of JohnBarhamof iStockbridge, by whom, (who d. 1874) 
he had, 

I. Edward-Hyde, d. in infancy. 

II. Edward-Hyde, fifth Earl. 

III. Georg-e-Patrick-IIyde, b. 1847, Capt. Grrenadier 



EARL OF CLARENDON. 171 

Guards, military secretary to Lord Lytton in India, holding 
a staff appointment in the Afghan expedition of 1878. 

IV. Francis-Hyde, mar. 1876 Virginia-Katharine, second 
daughter of Eric Carriugton Smith Esq. 

V. Constance, mar. 186-1 to Frederick- Arthiu", the younger 
son of Edward fourteenth Earl of Derb}^, and has issue, 
— Edward-Gfeorge-Villiers. — Victor- Albert. — Creoffrey and 
Arthur, twins, Greoffrey dying in infancy. — Ferdinand- 
Charles. — Katharine-Mary. — and others. 

VI. Alice, mar. 1860, to Edward Bootle AVilbraham, 
Baron Skelmersdale of Lancashire, and had issue. — • 
Edward-Greorge. — Villiers-lliehard. — Handle-Arthur. — 
Ileginald- Francis. — Alice-Maud. — Constancc-Adela. — 
Florence-Mary.— Bertha-Mabel. — Edith-Cecil. 

VII. Emily-Theresa, mar. 1868 to Lord Odo- William- 
Leopard Kussell, brother to the Duke of Bedford, and had 
issue,— Arthur-Oliver- Villiers, b. at Rome 1870. — Victor- 
Alexander- Frederick and Alexander- Victor- Frederick, twins. 
— Constance-Evelyn-Villiers. 

VIII. Florence-Margaret, died in infancy. His lordship 
died in 1870, and was succeeded by his eldest son, 

Edward-Hyde- Villiers, fifth Earl of Clarendon and Baron 
II}'de, an officer in the South Herts Yeomanry Cavalry, M.P. 
for Brecon, 186i). llovn 1846, married 1876 to the Lady 
Caroline-Elizabeth Agar-EUis, eldest daughter of the Earl 
of Normanton, and has issue, Greorge-IIerbert-Hyde, born 
1877. The Earldom of Clarendon is a branch of the Earl- 
dom of Jersey, but derived maternally from the Lord 
Chancellor Clarendon of the Civil War period. 



Barony of Lytton. 

Edith, second daughter of Edward-Ernest Villiers, see 
page 165, married in 1864 Sir Edward-Robert Lytton 
Bulwer- Lytton (only son of the first Baron Lytton of Kneb- 
worth in Herts) late Minister at Lisbon, and Viceroy of 
India in 1876. In the following year the Uueen conferred 
on him the grand cross of the civil division of the order of 
the Bath. His children are, 

1. Rowland-Edward, died in infancy. 

2. Henry-Meredith-Edward, d. young, 
o. A son born at Simla in 1876. 

4. Elizabeth-Edith. — 5. Constance-G-eorgina. 
6. Emily. 



172 THE HOUSE OF CROMWELL. 

His father the first Lord Lytton, distinguished as a novelist, 
a poet, and an orator, was buried in Westminster Abbey in 
18r;i. The ancestral Sir William Lytton of Knebworth, 
M.P. for Herts in the Long Parliament, was one of the Com- 
missioners to treat with King Charles at Uxbridge. 



SUMMARY, 



The above whioh in many instances is little more than a 
skeleton-sketch of the families deriving from Oliver Cromwell, 
might no doubt have been amplified by anecdote. But it is 
hoped that a suificient object has been attained when it is 
shewn how well the Protector, when he left his cause to the 
judgment of posterity, has been ever since represented in 
England, Scotland, and even in America. A dozen peerages, 
besides several baronetcies and a large phalanx of the worth 
and intelligence of the country, form a constituency which is 
not often traceable to a single head. A cursory examination 
moreover is sufficient to discover that several names might yet 
be added. At page 145, for instance, the account of the Collier 
family exhibits a mere catalogue of marriages, which it is 
reasonable to suppose must long e'er this have expanded into 
families. Still — the number approaches a thousand of those 
who have possessed the right, quantum ralenf, to style him 
ancestor; and it is a noticeable circumstance that persons so 
situated are rarely if ever found to ignore the fact. Let a 
family descend even into Jacobite depths, — j^et, if Oliver's 
parentage may be lawfully claimed, his effigy in some form 
or other will assuredly adorn the domestic portrait gallery. 




Sir William Lockhamt, 



SIR WILLIAM LOCKHART, 

AND THB 

CAMPAIGN IN FLANDERS. 



The chartacter and career of Sir William Lockhart enter so 
largely into the story of the Flanders campaign and of the 
treaty with France, that it will be best to commence with a 
brief sketch of his previous life. Industrious Mark Noble 
has already done this to our hand ; and though he complains 
that the manuscript constituting his principal authority 
" makes strange mistakes in the names of persons and places, 
and is most extremely ill-written," yet he adds that " its 
authenticity compensates for its inelegancy." Some of its 
statements, principally those in reference to the capture of 
Dunkirk, Mr. Carlyle characterizes as " quite mythological"; 
but with the aid of Lockhart's own letters, to which justice 
has never yet been done, there will be no great difficulty in 
separating the authentic from the traditional. Viewed in its 
real colours, without the aid either of mythology or of 
romance, the Dunkirk aifair was perhaps the most brilliant 
passage of arms ever achieved by Englishmen on the con- 
tinent of Europe, besides that it bore promise of becoming 
the most practical in its issues. If those issues were lightly 
esteemed and basely surrendered by a wanton generation, the 
fault lay not with Oliver. 

The Lockharts of Lee in Lanarkshire claim as their 
ancestor Sir Simon Locard who was deputed, conjointly 
with Lord James Douglas, to carry the heart of the Bruce to 
the Holy Land ; from and after which event the family 
adopted the spelling of Lockheart, and added to their escut- 
cheon a heart within the bow of a padlock, and the motto 
Corda serrata pando. They hold also that singular piece of 
antiquity called " the Lee penny," obtained in ramson from 
a Saracen chief, being a dark coloured stone set on a silver 
coin, the story of whose magical powers and healing proper- 



174 CAMPAIGN IN FLANDERS. 

ties may be read in Sir "Walter Scott's preface to Th^ Talbs- 
man. Sir James Lockliart Lord Lee of the Court of Session 
in James YI's time, by his second wife Martha Douglas, had 
issue, besides two daughters, four sons, viz. — 1, Sir William, 
commonly known as Ambassador Lockhart. — 2, Sir Greorge, 
of whom hereafter. — 3, Sir John of Castlehill. —4, Robert, 
killed in the civil wars, — all of them, so far as v/e can judge, 
decided royalists. 

Sir "William Lockhart, born in 1621, was sent for education 
to the neighbom'ing town of Lanark, where he gave early 
proof of his adventurous spirit. The Lanark pedagogue was 
a cruel tyrant, and young Lockhart dreading his vengeance 
on account of some trivial fault, ran into the woods sur- 
rounding his father's residence on the banks of the Clyde, 
and there lived for awhile on provisions f lu-nished him by his 
father's tenants. Sir James meanwhile resolving to re-de- 
liver his rebellious son into the pedagogue's hand, raised all 
the country-side ; and in the pursuit which followed, the lad 
was compelled to take a perilous leap from a precipice to 
which he was driven ; but alighting in a small stream of 
water described as "the river Mouse," he sustained no per- 
manent damage, and was able to continue his flight to Leith, 
where he actually embarked for Holland. At this time ho 
was but thirteen years of age, but being tall in stature and 
of lusty proportions, he was welcomed into the military 
service of the States. In the course of another .year, his 
uncle Sir George Douglas, ambassador to the courts of Sweden 
and Poland, dying, he attended his remains to Scotland, and 
embraced the opportunity of re-visituig the paternal home 
and seeking reconciliation with his father. But his father 
was not yet in a relenting mood, and he once more withcbew 
to some place on the Continent, apparently in Switzerland, 
where, sustained by secret remittances from his mother, he 
pm'sued a steady com-se of study and laid the foundation for 
his subsequent diplomatic skill. His next step was to enter 
the French army, where Scotsmen were always welcome, and 
the Queen-Mother was not long in discovering in the hand- 
some volunteer the fitting recipient of a pair of colom's and 
the captaincy of a troop of horse. 

But now the troubles in his native coimtry called him 
home, and induced him to take service for King Charles 
under his friend "William Hamilton Earl of Lanark (brother 
to Duke Hamilton.) When the King, at the termination of 
the first civil war in 1646, surrendered himself to the Scots 
army at Newark, Lockhart was introduced to him ; and the 
King, already well aware of his merits, knighted him at once, 



LOCKHART OF LEE. 175 

and besought his influence in behalf of the Marquis of Mont- 
rose against whom the Scots nation was deeply exasperated. 
*' Hamilton's Engagement," as it was called, was the next 
act in the drama, when the Duke joining his forces with a con- 
tingent of English royalists, in 1648, again broke the peace of 
England by that disastrous raid into the northern counties 
which issued in his total defeat at Preston. Sir William 
Lockhart ably covered the retreat of the Scots army ; but 
being eventually taken prisoner, he suffered a year's con- 
finement at Newcastle and a penalty of £1000 before he 
found himself again at liberty to take uj) arms in the royal 
cause — this time for the young King Charles II. Notwith- 
standing his misadventure Sir William still so far enjoyed 
the confidence of the Committee of Estates in Scotland that 
they nominated him General of all their horse ; but the 
jealousy of the Duke of Argyle counteracting his sole com- 
mand of so large a section of the army and proposing to 
distribute it among three officers, Sir William threw up his 
commission and retired to his father's house at Lee. By this 
event the Scots army lost his services at the battle of Dunbar ; 
and not long afterwards the young King himself completed 
the alienation by a thoughtless exhibition of hauteur. It 
was when Charles formed thn resolution of carrying the war 
into England, and in his march southward was passing over 
Lanark-Muir within a short distance of the Lockhart resi- 
dence. The Duke of Hamilton deeming the moment aus- 
picious for bringing about a reconciliation, rode round by 
Lee and prevailed upon Sir William to accompany him back 
to the army in order to renew his oath of fealty and make an 
unqualified offer of his services. On approaching the royal 
standard on the muir, they perceived the King on foot 
guarded by Loekhart's own regiment of horse ; and these 
men at the same moment saluting their restored commander 
with a lusty cheer, Charles was weak enough to take offence, 
and turned his back on his gallant servant. It was in vain 
that Hamilton attempted to explain and apologise. Lock- 
hart could brook it no longer. "After all that his father and 
himself had done and suffered in the royal cause, thus to be 
publickly insulted was more than he would endui-e from any 
King on Earth." And thus Sir William Lockhart was 
again saved from sharing the perils of a rash enterprize and 
from the final disaster of Worcester. 

After remaining foiu- years at home he resolved to break 
the tedium of inactivity by foreign travel, and took London 
in his way, partly for the purpose of visiting bis father who 
lay in the Tower, and partly to obtain a paes for leaving the 



176 CAMPAIGN IN FLANDERS. 

country. His solitary condition may iiave formed an ad- 
ditional motive, for he had recently lost his wife Margaret 
daughter of Sir John Hamilton of Orbistown, hart, (by whom 
he had one son, James, who died unmarried at the age of 
twenty.) Now, Oliver knew all about him ; and his arrival 
in London was speedily followed by an interview, whicli it 
would be very pleasant to describe, had we the means. But 
the issue was soon patent to the world. Ijockhart was to be 
not only a Scotch Judge and one of the privy council for 
Scotland, but he was to become allied to the Protectoral house 
by a marriage with Miss Eobina Sewster his Highness's niece. 
An unforseen hitch, it is true, threatened for awhile to 
hamper this latter article in the treaty ; for the young lady, 
when the scheme was laid before her, represented herself as 
already engaged. But the combined influence of her uncle 
and of a wooer so illustrious as Lockhart seem to have brought 
matters to a speedy adjustment. The family tradition is that 
Sir William waited on the young gentleman who stood in his 
way and suggested the alternative either of resigning the 
prize or of submitting their respective claims to the decision 
of the sword, a mode of arbitration which we can liardly 
suppose would receive the Protector's sanction. Anyhow, 
the opposition sank out of view ; Sir William obtained Miss 
Sewster's hand in April 1654, and a most loving and prudent 
wife she made him. Her family history will be noticed 
hereafter. 

But the points which principally recommended Sir William 
to the Protector were his pre-eminent qualifications for con- 
ducting an embassy at the Court of the youthful Monarch of 
France, then under the guidance of Cardinal Mazarin. 
Contemplating from an early period a wider action on the 
Continent in favour of religious liberty than could be com- 
passed by mere Protestant manifestoes, Oliver's policy, as 
hostile to Spain, must have been fixed and determinate long 
before his Council were required to co-operate. We have it 
on Thurloe's authority that " he always much longed to got 
a footing on the other side of the water." ^ So early as April 
1654 while he was concluding the peace with the Dutch, that 
nation was assured by their ambassadors in England that 
Spain was urgently resisting the measure, and attempting 
to bribe him to prolong the contest by the offer of Dunkirk 
and Mardyke and a million worth of plate in hand, what- 
ever this may mean ; (perhaps the million refers to silver 
ounces or royals.) And Whitelock tells us in his Memorials 
23 June 1658, that he had been employed on one occasion, 
in company with Mr. Bond, to report on proposals made by 



AMJJASSADOR LOC'KIIAHT. 177 

the Spanish Governor of Dunkirk to betray the place to 
J^ngland for a sum of money, and that Oliver rejected the 
proposition as dishonourable. Whatever may be the value 
of these second-hand reports, the solid evidence remains fur- 
nished by a "Memorial" presented by the Marquis de 
J^eyda and Don Alphonso de Cardenas, explicitly offering to 
besiege and recover Calais for the English nation on con- 
dition that Cromwell would assist the Prince de Conde with 
ships and soldiers to effect a landing at Bordeaux or some 
other available point. Jenkinson's Collection of Treaties 
But everything points to the conclusion that Dunkirk rather 
than Calais or any other sea-port was the point to be struck 
at. Dunkii-k and Ostend in those days were simply nests of 
sea-robbers, who spent the winter months in fitting out their 
piratical craft, and then issued out as soon as the season per- 
mitted to make common prey of the merchant ships of all other 
nations. Newspaper reports, keeping the London ship-owners 
m constant alarm, were ever and anon anuoimcinr'- that 
"Ostenders and Dunkirkers " were again watchiucr the 
Straits ; and during the brief war which preceded their^city's 
capture, the Dunku-kers are admitted by Belidor to have 
stolen two-hundred-and-fifty of our vessels small and o-reat 
A lawless enemy of this kind, lying in wait in sight oi the 
English shore, and protected when he thought fit to retreat 
behmcl his own unapproachable sands, was a nuisance per- 
fectly intolerable, and independently of political considera- 
tions Oliver was not the sovereign to permit it The 
possession of Dunkii^k could be no wrong to France for 
inlanders was not, and never had been, French territory It 
was m the usurped possession of Spain. England's mission 
so every patriot had long thought, was to attack Spaiu at any 
practicable point ; and where liad Spanish Popery wrought 
more desolating work than in the Low Countries ? Up then 
and at them. East, West, North, or South. 

A league with France, therefore, offensive and defensive 
and one which should include the acquisition of Dunkirk 
would be a master-stroke whose influence could not fail to 
vibrate m every Court of Europe. Nor would that choice of 
policy lose its desired eft^ect nearer home. The royal Eno-lish 
exiles were related by blood to the French Com-t, and uSless 
an understanding existed between France and the EugHsh 
Kepublic Scotland might again be in revolt. This was a 
tormidable consideration and one which made Lockhart's co- 
operation doubly valuable. The Stuart princes might indeed 
consort with Spain, as in fact they did, but this would only 
increase their unpopularity in England. Furthermore, the 



N 



17^ CAMPAIGN IN r].ANDEilS. 

Protestants of Franco who had often looked to England for 
1 ucconr, alas, how vainly under the Stuarts, might fare better 
now that their country's ally was a sovereign of the right kind; 
while hostility with France, on the other hand, would endanger 
the amity with Sweden, which Oliver for various good reasons 
resolutely clierished. Those who desire to see a fuller vin- 
dication of the policy which preferred France to Spain may 
find it elaborately set forth in *' A Manifesto of the Lord 
Protector of the Commomcenlth of England Scotland and 
Ireland, published by consent and advice of his Council; 
wherein is shewn the reasonableness of the cause of this Re- 
public against the depradations of the Spaniards.^'' Written 
in Latin by John Milton, and published in 1655. 

" If you make peace," said Oliver on a subsequent occasion, 
"with any State that is popish and subjected to the determi- 
nation of Eome, you are bound but they are loose. We have 
now alliance witli no popish State but France, and it is 
certain thc}^ do not think themselves under such a tie to the 
Pope but that they are at liberty to perform honesties with 
nations in agreement with them. Now, the papists of 
England have been accounted ever since I was born, Spaniol- 
ized. They never regarded France ; Sjiain was their patron 
all along, in England, Ireland, and Scotland : no man can 
doubt of it. And now Spain hath espoused the cause of 
Charles Stuart, and hath raised seven or eight thousand men 
who are now quartered at Bruges." 

Oliver's sclieme was threefold, — to obtain a foot-hold in 
the Low Countries, — to seize Gibraltar,— and to effect a com- 
prehensive capture of Spanish temtory in the West Indies, 
either on the main land or among the islands. At Dunkirk 
he succeeded : he was unprepared to take more than a smwey 
of G-ibraltar ; and of his vast designs in the West, the com- 
paratively small result of the captm'e of Jamaica was accom- 
plished by incapable deputies, — whose failure vexed him 
beyond measure. The concordat eventually signed with the 
King of France in 1657 stipulated that the English Govern- 
ment should transport into that country six thousand foot 
soldiers, who as soon as they were landed shoidd come under 
the pay of France and, in concert with a French force of borse 
and foot, forthwith besiege Gravelines or Dunkirk ; either of 
which being taken was to be delivered into English hands, 
Gravelines by way of caution, Dunkirk absolutely. This 
was the way in which the campaign was to open, and the 
treaty was only for one year. But inasmuch as the only sea- 
port which the combined forces captured before the winter 
was Mardyke, the treaty had to be renewed for another year ; 



AMlJASSAbOR LOCKIIAlil'. l79 

in conformity wherewith Dunkirk was at last taken and sur- 
rendered to the English. How all this Avas achieved by 
" The immortal Six Thousand " as they were fondly and 
absurdly called, has now to be related. 

Lockhart prepared to leave England in his new capacity in 
April 1656, armed with bills of exchange to be utilized at 
the rate of £120 a month. Landing at Dieppe where he 
was received with distinguished marks of cordiality, he passed 
on to St. Denis to be in readiness to hold audience with Car- 
dinal Mazarin, and there took the preliminary measure of 
furnishing himself with a coach and putting his company 
into fitting trim ; so that by the time the next News-letter 
was published, he was correctly described as being well 
attended with gentlemen pages and lackeys. Oliver had 
evidently resolved that his representative in France should 
out- shine those of all other countries ; and it was soon found 
that the £120 a month was a very inadequate provision. A 
quaint but very adulatory reference to this appointment 
occm\s in the narrative of Carrington (a contemporary bio- 
grapher of the Cromwell family). The representative at the 
French court, ho remarks, occupied a place which furnished 
more occasions than any of the other embassies for the dis- 
play of heroic virtues ; and then glancing at that renowned 
lady, his Highness's niece, to whom Sir William was espoused, 
he assures us that " in both of them we behold shining those 
two happy and glorious talents which render persons of their 
birth and quality commendable and famous." Friend Car- 
rington does not state what the two talents were, but from 
the next sentence we gather his meaning to have been that 
the knight and his lady were as fair in mind as in body. — 
" His [Lockhart's] person seems to have been sent into 
France to charm the whole nation and to attract and accu- 
mulate graces." 

But such was far from being the general sentiment. To 
begin with the Catholic clergy. To them, as a matter of 
course, the new Envoy's arrival was a soui-ce of undisguised 
annoyance. So also was it to the Scots in the French King's 
service, though from a different motive. That Lookhart of 
Lee should actually be coming out as Cromwell's agent, says 
a news-AVTiter, " is so hardly taken by the Scots, that they 
will willingly find out some handsome way to cut him ofi', 
and I do believe you will hear more of it." The ex-Queen 
of England and her son the Duke of York gave directions 
that no affront ehould be offered him by their partisans, but 
the infatuated street rabble assaulted the coach of the Savoyard 
ambassador, supposing it to be Lockhart's, and used the 
foukst language. 



180 CAMPAIGN IN I'l-ANDERS. 

For some months Lockliai't found his position very arduous, 
and his reiterated requests to be allowed to withdraw from 
the service must have greatly harassed the Protector. At 
length in December 1656 he obtains leave to come to England 
to visit his wife who was about to lie in, and in January he 
returns to his post. It were long to recount all the doublings 
and turnings which his colloquies with the French court re- 
vealed, set forth at large as they are in his correspondence 
with Mr. Secretary Thurloe. His visit to England no doubt 
enabled him, when closeted with the Protector, to reduce 
them all to a very simple issue, and to go back to liis work 
re-energized by communion with his noble friends in Council, 
and more ambitious to measure and confront the lofty work 
which he now felt to be within his grasp. " I am the servant 
to a master," he once wrote to Monsieur de Ize the pastor of 
Grenoble, " whose endeavours are always great, whose vigil- 
ancy and care are truly pious for the preservation of the 
reformed churches, and whose love and kindness is particu- 
larly interested in the relief of those distressed Protestants of 
Piedmont." Thurloe, v. 142. 

Lockhart's own well pronounced Protestantism was a cause 
of offence to the Queen Mother and her Jesuit crew from 
first to last ; but supported by the liberal counsels of Mazarin, 
who was hated at Rome equally with himself, he stood his 
ground like a good Scot, and was hardly ever foiled when he 
thought fit to take up the wager of battle. One of his earliest 
troubles on returning to Paris arose from the litigation with 
which the ex-Uueen of England was pursuing Lady Inchi- 
qiiin the I*rotestant wife of one of Charles Stuart's own 
officers, whom together with her son, Lockhart took under 
protection and was preparing to pass them into England, when 
the youth was stolen from the very gate of his house and 
persuaded to write a letter to the Cardinal denouncing his 
mother and the English ambassador. " Yom- Honour cannot 
imagine," he writes to Thurloe, '" what a matter is made of 
it. I am to wait upon the Queen this afternoon, who is to 
make it her suit to me to leave any further prosecuting of 
that business. The Protestants are no less pressing on the 
other hand, and say that if I succumb in this, the insolency 
of the Papists will be insufferable. Indeed, Sir, my own 
wicked nature doth so engage me in this business, that except 
I receive your orders to the contrary, I shall put all the credit 
and all else I am worth in this world to hazard, before I bear 
the affront I have received, — to which there can be no repa- 
ration unless the young gentleman be put in statu quo ; and 
wlien he is once again within my doors, he shall have leave 



LOCKHART'S rROTESTANTISM. 181 

to do whatever lie thinks good." Need we add that Monsieur 
the Ambassador succeeded according to his wont in bringing 
the turbulent party to his feet ? The following letter from 
him in reference to his personal scruples in the matter of 
Sunday entertainments is also very characteristic. 

LochhaH to 3Ir. Secretary Thurloe. 

Eight Honouraule. — " As I was closing my packet, M. 
de Lions came to me from his Eminence and told me that upon 
Friday night M. Turenne, M. de Servient, M. de Strada, and 
himself, were to wait upon the Cardinal, who made it his 
desire to me that I would be there, which I have promised. 
He hath likewise prevailed with me to see the King's ball 
this night incognito. I have been twice invited before, and 
was so pressed] in it that I was forced to own my scruple 
of being there upon the Lord's day, upon which it hath 
always been danced hitherto. I have not the vanity to 
imagine that [the choice of] this night is in consideration of 
me, yet I know the King did interest himself in my seeing 
of it so as to cause to make me a place behind the theatre 
were nobody should see me. As I thought the exposing my- 
self to be too great a libertine by seeing it upon the Lord's 
day would offend God and be against your service, so I hope 
the appearing not to be over nice and scrupulous will not be 
construed to be for your dis-service." The date of the above 
is 7 Feb. new style, 1656 — 7. So that " this night " seems 
to have been not a Lord's day. Our Ambassador has 
evidently won his way, and appears at the King's ball in 
domino, which was certainly better than squinting from the 
secret place behind the theatre, on a Sunday. So much for 
the domain of morals. His political game has now to be 
pui'sued afresh. 

A very few weeks of negociation enabled him to announce 
that the Treaty had taken the following shape, — That Mar- 
dyke and Dunkirk should be besieged in April by a combined 
army of 20,000 French and 6,000 English, and the EngHsh 
fleet at sea. — -That if it should be found necessary to seize 
Grravelines in the first place in order to keep up land com- 
munication with France, that then England should hold 
Gravelines till possessed of Dunkirk and Mardyke. — That 
the Protector of England might station the half of his men 
to garrison those two places, without making up the number 
of 6000 to serve in the field, and that contributions for their 
maintenance might be levied on the circumjacent province of 
Flanders ; with other regulations about liberty of worship in 



182 CAMPAIGN IN FLANDKUS. 

the captirred towns.— That the pay of the English forces Ly 
France, after handing on the French coast, shoukl be equal to 
that of the French and Swiss guards.— And finally that no 
peace should be concluded with Spain except by joint con- 
sent. The plan of the campaign the French cbew out in 
their own language, but Lockhart wished them also to sign 
his English draft. After consulting with the Cardinal, both 
parties agreed to adopt a Latin form. 

Cromwell on his part at once put the levy in execution, 
clad his infantry in new red coats, and nominated as Com- 
mander in chief Sir John Reynolds who was then serving in 
Ireland as Commissary- General of the Horse to his brother- 
in-law Henry CromAvell. The Protector's commission to 
him, dated 25 April 1657 may be seen in full in Thurloe, VI. 
230. Captain Titus, narrating the facts to Chancellor Hyde, 
says, " It seems my old chamber-fellow Eeynolds is their 
General, a man as fit to serve such a master as Cromwell as 
any ; for he wants not wit, and hath no conscience." Such 
is the testimony of a royalist ; the sequel wdll enable us better 
to estimate it. 

Reynolds's pay as General, Colonel, and Captain was twenty 
crowns or £5 a day, — that of his Major-general, Thomas 
Morgan, £1 a day. to which twelve shillings seems to have 
been added. — Adjutant-general, Manwairing, five shillings, 
to which three shillings seems to have been added. — Judge- 
advocate, eight shillings, to which fom- shillings and sixpence 
seems to have been added. — Provost-marshall, five shillings, 
and his four men at one shilling and eightpence each. — 
Marshall-general, Bee, one crown, and his four archers at 
seventeen sols each. — Gunsmiths, seventeen sols. — Apothecary, 
Abel Clark, three shillings, and fom-pence. The common 
soldiers' pay was seven sols a day. In old dictionaries a sol 
is said to be the twentieth part of a livre. Samuel Morland 
in accounting for the Piedmontese contribution constantly 
treats the French livre as worth one shilling and sixpence. 
At ^his estimate seven sols represented rather more than six- 
pence. Other names occiu-ring in the Flanders army are Dr. 
French a physician, J. Robinson preacher to the General's 
regiment. Colonels Henry Lillingstone, Roger Allsop, Sir 
Brice Cochran, Salmon, Gibbons, Haynes, Barrington, 
Devaux, Fenwick. It may be said that, as a general rule, 
the Cardinal took care to pay the English troops promptly, 
which was rendered all the more necessary by emissaries from 
the Duke of York's camp, who crept into the English lines 
and offered better pay. On one occasion when the Cardinal's 
convoys lost their treasui-e, Marshal Turenne stopped the 



THE pope's alarm. 183 

English clamour by cuttiug up his own service of plate 
and giving- it out to the men by weight. Lockhart, 7 Sep. 1 657. 
Gfreat was the consternation of the Pope when the news 
reached him that the Treaty was an accomplished fact. His 
efforts had long been du'ected to establish a peace between 
the two cliief sons of the church, France and Spain, yet now 
one Was in sworn alliance with iha arch-heretic of Europe, 
and a Cardinal had lent his sanction to the deed. In vain 
did the French envoy assui-e his Holiness that his master the 
King of France was absolutely driven to this step in order to 
anticipate the action of the King of Spain who had striven 
hard to secui'e the same alliance for himself to the prejudice 
of France. The Pope for awhile made no reply, till at last, 
heaving a deep sigh, he observed, " Then I must summon a 
congregation to advise as to the church's well-being." 
I , "While the Eed-coats are landing at Boidogne in the merry 
month of May, Mr. Ambassador Lockhart finds his old military 
duties come crowding in upon him, rekindling the old ardoiu", 
and fm-nishing occasion for the exercise of his versatile talents. 
He first repairs to Marshal Tm^enne, then at Amiens, and 
learns inter alia that the English forces when on the march are 
to take precedence of all the French regiments, except the two 
old regiments of Gruards ; and when ranged in order of battle, 
all possible jealousies shall be evaded by preconcerted dis- 
position of the wings. Thence he rode on to Boulogne to 
salute that portion of the army which had already arrived • 
and as soon as they could be all di-awn out in review, they 
received half-a-month's pay in advance. The Officers had it 
seems been led to expect three month's pay in advance, but 
our prudent Ambassador urged that the men would only 
*' debauch the money," and then find themselves in distress. 
He then passed by every company in succession, bade them 
most heartily welcome to France, and assured them of the 
solicitude entertained for their welfare by his Highness the 
Protector, who in fact had appointed him [Lockhart] " to 
wait upon the French Court for no other end than to serve 
them, in seeing all things punctually performed to them." 
This was a somewhat undue magnifying of means at the ex- 
pence of the end, but it answered the purpose of a camp 
oration. The men responded with their favomute hoo-ray, 
threw up their caps and "prayed for his Highness." Now, 
says he to Thm-loe, " I must back to Paris to settle my 
private affairs, which are in more confusion than I dare make 
known. I have been drawing bills on my brother [Greorp-e ?] 
for considerable sums, but am still so much in debt in Paris 
that if my wife and children were not em-pawned there I 



184 CAMPAIGN IX FLANDERS. 

sliould liave no thought of returning." And debts were not 
his only trouble ; for a few months later his much loved wife 
fell ill of a fever till her life was almost despaired of. One 
of the experimental remedies adopted by the physicians was 
to bleed her in the foot ; but happily she survived this and 
all the other medical fallacies of the age, and lived to bless 
her husband and a numerous admiring posterity for nearly 
thirty years longer. 

Nothing coukl exceed the apparent cordiality with which 
the English troops were at first entertained. Presents of 
wine and provisions came poming in from the Cax'dinal in 
such profusion that Sir John Reynolds and his ofiicers were 
virtually enjoying a free table. In brief, says Loekhart, 
" t]\e Court expresses so extraordinary a kindness for them 
that when I reflect upon their carriage towards other troops 
from whom also they expect considerable services, I am 
tempted to be jealous that there may be something lurking 
at the bottom of so much caress, which I do not yet 
thoroughly understand." And good reason our Ambassador 
had for his suspicions ; but here, before advancing farther, 
the military situation seems to crave a brief note of explana- 
tion. 

Flanders, which has always been debateable ground, was 
at that time spotted by Spanish forts lying along an unde- 
fined frontier extending from Montmedy to Calais ; see the 
accompanying map. A small Spanish army was also on the 
move, that is to say dming the summer months, reinforced 
by the French Prince de Conde, then at war with his own 
country, and by the three English Princes, Charles, James, 
and Henry Stuart at the head of three or four thousand 
English and Irish. In opposition to this heterogeneous force, 
the army of the French King led by the renowned Turenne, 
a nominal Protestant but entirely devoted to Cardinal 
Mazarin, was dodging in and out, taking one town and losing 
another, wasting the poor country-folk, but fm-nishing pastime 
for the Court, and opportunities of distinction for aspiring 
gallants who were anxious to win their spurs without too 
wantonly throwing away their lives. An army of Cromwell's 
arriving to take part in this desultory warfare might, it was 
thought, bring it to a speedy crisis, as in fact it did ; but 
then it was desirable that such crisis should be altogether in 
France's favour, not in that of England. Turenne's mode of 
handling the English contingent must therefore be adjusted 
accordiugl3^ 

If the Cromwellian army imagined that after landing at 
Boulogne, their coui'se would straightway lie along the 



I.OCKIIAIIT EXPOSTULATES. 185 

Northern sliore towards Calais, Grravelines, and Dunkirk, 
they were speedily undeceived. Turenne, as Commander in 
chief, had other Avork for them first ; and it must have been 
a sore trial to their patience to receive their first marching- 
orders in just the opposite direction, through Montreuil to 
Abbeville, as though Paris were the object of the campaign. 
Turenne's scheme was to draw the war, and the English 
forces along with it, away from the sea-coast ; to which end, 
without consulting Lockhart, he at once laid siege to Cam- 
bray, full seventy miles inland. Lockhart, who soon dis- 
covered his drift, ]iad the courage to open the battery of his 
expostulations with the Court as soon as they reached Abbe- 
ville, but found himself so suftocated witli French politesse 
that he was compelled to drift along with events which for 
the present were clearly out of his hands. " Why," — it was 
said to him, with affected astonishment by one apologist and 
another, " are you aware that the Com-t, which was sitting 
at Montreuil as your army approached, actually turned out 
to make room for you ? And the King remarked that 
he could pass no greater compliment upon his Highness's 
subjects than to trust them with so important a place on their 
first arrival ; — ^And was it not notorious that everything was 
done to make their quarters agreeable ? To begin the opera- 
tions of the combined army by assaulting Cambray was not 
perhaps, the Cardinal himself admitted, in strict accordance 
with the Treaty, but he hoped the English Protector would 
eventually recognize the wisdom of the scheme ; and he ven- 
tured fm-ther to express his belief that when his Highness 
came to know him better, he would think more kindly of 
him. To this long chapter of excuses Lockhart roundly 
replied that the good usage of his troops was not all that the 
Protector expected ; and that unless the more material part 
of the Treaty were respected and put in execution, his High- 
ness's service would require his troops elsewhere. The col- 
loquy closed by the Cardinal's begging Lockhart's acceptance 
of a handsome caleche and six horses, which the wary Am- 
bassador prudently declined. 

But whatever might be the studied courtesy of the Court, 
the townspeople of Abbeville displayed none whatever. On 
the approach of the English " they drew their chains " [of 
the city gates ?] and assaulted with arms several officers and 
soldiers in the streets. Su" John Reynolds rode up at once 
to the head of the rioters, told them we had no anns against 
Erenchmen, and would bear none while in Abbeville, and 
that for himself he would rather die defenceless than break 
the Treaty ; by which means he awed them into something 



18G CAMPAIGN IN FLANDERS. 

like civility, but left them " to guard their chains with their 
own fusees." The explanation of all this was that Abbeville 
was " the most popish and Jesuited town in France." 

From Abbeville they advanced through Amiens and 
Corbie towards St. Quentin in order to effect a junction with 
Tm-enne ; and as if to make amends for the affront just 
received at Abbeville, they wore met at a spot, apparently 
near Roye, by the entire French Court, accompanied by 
Lockhart whose own "words will best describe the animated 
scene. — " Upon Saturday last the King, Queen, Monsieur 
[this was Maneini the Cardinal's nephew] and the Cardinal, 
with the whole Com't, viewed the English forces at Ribble- 
mont. They were much satisfied with the sight of so many 
brave men. When I told the King that his Highness had 
commanded both the officers and soldiers of these forces to 
have the same zeal for his Majesty's service as they had 
always expressed for his own, and hoped that the same suc- 
cess which Grod had blessed them with in his service would 
attend them in that of his Majesty, his answer was that he 
was ravished to see so great a testimony of the affection of a 
prince whom he had always considered the greatest and hap- 
piest in Europe ; and that once before this campaign ended, 
he would endeavoiu" to witness himself thankful ; and so 
hinted something of his resolution concerning Dunkirk. I 
should consume too much of your time if I told you all the 
Cardinal said, his expressions of joy and of gratitude. His 
promises to perform all they are obliged to on their part did 
exceed anything I had reason to expect. If his actions do 
answer them, his Highness will be satisfied, and I shall be 
extremely happy." 

It was nearly the middle of June before the English army 
reached Turenne's camp at Vervins. Vociferous shoutings 
arose from the ranks ; the leaders probably saw very little 
reason for rejoicing. They had now left Dunkirk and the 
sea-coast more than a hundred miles behind them, and learnt 
moreover that Tm'enne having been beaten off from Cambray, 
the capture of Montmedy, considerably farther inland, was 
the next thing to be attemj)ted. The French Court were 
cruising about to amuse themselves by watching the proceed- 
ings of the army, and disconsolate Lockhart could do no 
better than copy their example, and, to adopt his own expres- 
sion, hover about their march, watching for an opportunity to 
speak with the Cardinal. In one of these intervals he occu- 
pied his time by executing a French translation of the nar- 
rative of the recent victory of the English fleet at Teneriife, 
and causing it to be printed and distributed in the French 






Chart 

to illufstrate the two campaijyns of 

**^Tlie Immortai/ Six TtiousAND". , „ 

1657.1608. / 

' / Rotterdam 



Dover 









>- 



Calais XT " ^^Bei>o-ttes 

iBowloune St Omex- Ypres 

\ 



iStVenanl 



I Montreuil -^ 
o 

vAl)l)eville 



Arras 



JJoiiay 



AtnteiiX Corj 

Montdidier ^"J^ 

T R ° A 



Beauvats 

o 




JSdto. }{iZC, anM-Sioitr, 



SIEGE OF MONTMEDY. 187 

camp. Another of his adopted pastimes was to make a survey 
and map of the fortifications and lines of approach about 
Montmedj, whicli he then sent to the Protector, with a request 
that after his Hi^Imess's inspection it might be forwarded 
" to my very good lord and master my Lord Eichard," the 
only intimation we have, by the way, that Eichard Cromwell 
ever interested himself much in military details. Perhaps 
also it was Lockhart who transmitted the following copy of 
lines which remain in manuscript in the Brit. Mus. Library 
to this day, being a note of defiance sent out of Montmedy 
by its Grovernor, addressed to Marshal La Ferte the General 
of the French infantry. 

Pourquoy s'obstiner davantage 

A voulloir prendre Mommidy, 
Deffendu par un estourdy, 

Qui ne fait que sortir de page ? 
Qui pretend comme un jeune fou, 
Se faire enterrer dans son trou. 

Cest un obstine personnage, 
Qui ne craint point votre baston. 

Monsieur, monstrez vous le plus sage. 
Retirez vous a Eireton. 

Vous avez fait assez d'ouvrage. 

Lockhart also made a personal examination of the besiegers' 
mines previous to their being sprung. This was expected to 
afford a pleasant entertainment for the ladies and gentlemen 
of the Com't, who, when the critical moment was drawing 
near, were all conveyed to the corner of a wood out of cannon 
reach, there to await the grand blow-up. Lockhart had 
assured the engineers that their work did not sufficiently 
penetrate the bastions, and the very partial destruction which 
followed the explosions confirmed his predictions. The sur- 
render of the place however followed immediately, beino- pre- 
cipitated by the Grovernor's death from a cannon-shot, and 
must have been an unspeakable relief to Lockhart and his 
brethren ; for the English contingent was becoming greatly 
demoralized, as well as thinned in numbers. One reporter 
states that five-hundred of them fell at a sally made by the 
garrison (though this seems hardly credible,) and a further 
loss was occasioned by a party of them running away to join 
the Dulce of York's standard. The deserters carried with 
them Su^ John Eeynolds's waggon ; and though in the pursuit 
that followed they were compelled to relinquish the waggon, 
they made off with the contents of his treasure trunk. A 
captain and two lieutenants being convicted as agents in the 
practice of seducing the common soldiers, were thereupon 
publickly himg in camp. 



188 CAMPAIGN IN FLANDEUS. 

Tho Duke of York's standard, referred to above, was 
floating at Mons, where he had recently arrived to co-operate 
Avitli the Spanish army under Don John of Austria, and 
forthwith made proclamation that he intended to give no 
quarter to any of tho Cromwellians, should it ho his good 
fortune to light tipon them. His secret emissaries wrought 
the cause more diimage than his threats ; for these men creep- 
ing into the French quarters and ofToring large pay, decoyed 
away many of Cromwell's men from time to time ; and this 
practice continued throughout the campaign. One very 
scandalous action is recorded of the Duke personally, nor is 
there anything in his subsequent history as James II. to 
render it incredible. Sixty or seventy of lieynolds's in- 
vidided soldiers being on their way to the hospital of St, 
(iuontin, were pm-sued by the Duke to a house where they 
defended themselves as long as their strength permitted ; but 
on their resolute refusal when at last eaptiu'cd to take service 
under him, "he in despight killed one of them in cold blood." 
lleynolds thereupon sent a drum to let him know that the 
threat of " No quarter " was reciprocal. 

And now at last the Cromwellians were cheered by the 
prospect of a change of scene. The Queen Mother and the 
Popish faction, could they have had their way, would have 
carried on the cheat to the end of the campaign ; but Turenne 
and the Cardinal were beginning to feel that this protracted 
injustice towards the English Protector had gone far enough, 
and the order was therefore given to march northwards. One 
obstacle still lay in their way. St. Venant, a small fort on 
the river Lys, it was thought should be reduced first ; and 
tlie English troops with all their discouragements were still 
resolved to show that they would never decline an occasion to 
fight. St. Venant therefore, which was on tho road towards 
Dunkirk, was at once invested, and taken by the English 
who begged to have the honour of storming. From St. 
Venant they advanced to the relief of Ardres, which, being 
in French hands, was just then surrounded by a Spanish 
force. Here also the credit of the affair had to be accorded 
to the English, who, led on by Sir John Peynolds in person, 
promptly raised the siege and scattered the assaiknts ; 
Turenne's immediate followers meanwhile suffering a cruel 
reverse, for a retreating Spanish force under Bouteville inter- 
cepted his baggage train and captured four hundred waggons 
and four thousand horses. He had long been vehemently 
arging Lockhart to induce the Protector to shij) off additional 
supplies of biscuit, horse-provender, and war materiel, to 
meet them when they reached the coast, and this untoward 



Oliver's indignation. 189 

event quickened his determination to lay immediate siege to 
Mardyke and recover his credit with the Englisli nation. 

But the English army itself also stood in need of recruit- 
ing. They had now been marching up and down for three 
months, fighting battles for the French, and were considerably 
reduced both in numbers and in efficiency. Several Avere 
lying in hospitals ; and Tui'enne with professional sang-froid 
was com-teously suggesting that his Highuess's invalids Would 
recover much more rapidly if sent to their native country. 
" No, no," said Lockhart, " This were a very unwise course 
for my master to pursue. If tlie Englisli people see only 
ship-loads of returned wounded men as the result of all this 
hard fighting in France, the whole aifair will be branded 
with discouragement. His Higlmess is quite ready to furnisli 
additional supplies if he thought that the good faith which 
he has himself kept would be reciprocated, but he must first 
see some fruit of his Treaty." Oliver, in fact, was by this 
time firing up witli indignation. It looked as though the 
Flanders campaign was about to be a repetition of the West 
Indian expedition, and it was felt that a second failure 
against the Spaniard abroad might give fatal impetus to 
Spanish treason at home. " I am deeply sensible," he wrote 
to Lockhart on the 31st August, " that the French are very 
much short with us in ingenuousness and performance. And 
that which increaseth our sense of this is, the resolution 
which we for our part had, rather to overdo than to bo be- 
hindhand in anything of om- Treaty. And altliough we 
never were so foolish as to apprehend that the Froncli and 
their interests were the same with ours in all things ; yet as 
to the Spaniard, who hath been known in all ages to be the 
most implacable enemy that France hath, wc never could 
doubt before we made our Treaty that, going upon sucli 
grounds, we should have been foiled as we are. To talk of 
giving us garrisons which are inland as caution for future 

action, — to talk of what will be done next campaign, are 

but parcels of words for childi-en. If they will give us gar- 
risons, let them give us Calais, Dieppe, and Boulogne, 

which I think they would as soou do as be honest in their 
words in giving any one Spanish garrison upon the qpast 
into om'_ hands. I positively think, (which I say to you) they 
are afraid we should have any footing on that side of the 
water,— though Spanish." The Protector then urges that if 
the English foot would at once operate with the French in- 
fantry against Dunkii-k, aided by our Fleet at sea, and if 
Turenne's cavalry would at the same time sweep the country 
in the rear, the thing might be done before the winter. But 



l&O CAMPAIGN IN FLANDEilS. 

as to further delay, what did it all mean hut just to keep our 
men another summer in their service without any reciprocal 
advantage ? In a second letter, evidently an after-thought, 
written on the same day and sent by the same courier, he 
says, — " We desire, having written to you as we have, that 
the design be Dunkirk rather than Gravelines ; and much 
more that it be, — but one of them rather than fail. We shall 
not be wanting to send over, at the French charge, two of 
our old regiments, and two thousand more if need be, — if 

Dunkirk be the design But if indeed the French 

bo so false to us that they would not let us have any footing 
on that side the water, then I desire, as in our other letter to 
you, that all things may be done in order to the giving us 
satisfaction for our expences incurred, and to the drawing off 
of our men. And truly. Sir, I desire you to take boldness 
and freedom to yourself in your dealing with the French on 
these accounts. Your loving friend, 

Oliver, P. 

" This letter," here Mr. Carlyle is quoted, " natm-ally had 
its effect. Indeed there goes a witty sneer in France — The 
Cardinal is more afraid of Oliver than of the Devil. He 
ought indeed to fear the Devil much more, bait Oliver is the 
palpabler entity of the two. Mardyke was besieged straight- 
"way, girt by sea and land, and the great guns opened on the 
21st day of September. Mardyke was taken before Sep- 
tember ended ; and due delivery to om' General was had of 
Mardyke." Letters and Speeches, \. 94. Oliver has at last got 
a footing on the other side of the water. 



Mardyke in possession. 



I9l 



MARDYKE. 

Oliver, as a'bove said, 
and with him the Eng- 
lish nation, have at Last 
recovered a footing on 
the other side of the 
water, just a hundred 
years, within a few 
weeks, after they had 
lost it at Calais ; — and 
though a very poor 
place this Mardyke, 
damp, narrow, and un- 
wholesome, and hardly 
worth the name of a 
stronghold, still as it 
lay open to the sea and 
guarded the approaches 
to Dunkirk, it was re- 
solved to make the best 
of it, and to hold it 
during the winter as an 
instalment of something better in the spring. Sir John 
Reynolds was to be the commander; and palisades, deal- 
boards, and ammunition of every kind were promptly shipped 
from England to re-edify the fragile fortifications. An army 
correspondent, name unknown, writes, 10 October, — " We 
now only stay for some recruits, and then without all dispute 
we shall have Dunkirk if the season be not too far gone 
before they land. Some of our officers do doubt of the taking 
of it. I suppose you lieard of the sm-render of Mardyke. 
They held it out but twenty four hom-s and then gave them- 
selves up prisoners of war. They marched out eight hundred 
and forty of as good men as ever I saw in these parts. Our 
English did ga Han tly. They took the wooden fort [an 
advanced work standing out in the sea at the end of a short 
pier or causeway] which struck the poor Spaniards into a 
panic fear, and made them surrender immediately, and we 
now keep it as our own until we have Dunkirk. On Sunda}- 
we encamped before G-ravelines, to keep our army in a little 
exercise ; but the same night the rogues in the town let out 
so much water among our men that we we were forced to 
remove further off. The enemy's army doth not lie far from 
VLB but are too fearful. They dare not make any attempt 




192 CAMPAIGN IN FLANBERS. 

upon US. But I wish we liad gained Dunkirk. If we sliould 
not get it, I fear the enemy will get Mardyke-fort from us 
again this winter ; but I hope we shall be more vigilant and 
prevent them." ThuHoe. 

The attack soon came. Mardyke lying between Grave- 
lines and Dunkirk was in perilous proximity to the Spanish 
force, hardly in fact two leagues distant. Towards the close 
of October the enemy issued out of Dunkirk, headed by Ge- 
nerals Marseines and Caracena, and the chiefs of the English 
royalists, to wit, Charles II., the Dukes of York and Gloucester, 
Ormond and Bristol, (Rochester alone remaining behind 
through sickness.) Carrying vast loads of faggots, pioneer- 
materials, and hand-grenades, seven thousand of them made 
a dash at the outworks at ten o'clock at night, got over the 
first graff and came to close fighting at the second. But here 
their advance stopped short. It was an awful scrimmage 
dimng that long autumn night, — " Admiral Montague pour- 
ing death-fire on the Royalists from the English fleet ; 
foiu' great flaming links at the corners of Mardyke-tower 
warning him not to aim thitherward." Before sun-rise the 
enemy were all out of sight. They carried away their killed 
and wounded in carts, having buried fifty men on the strand, 
and abandoned all their war-materiel. Ezekiel Leblue the 
modern historian of Dunkirk says there were more than twelve 
hundred slain upon the place besides the wounded ; and that 
of the two English Dukes, York and Gloucester, one was 
wounded and the other had his horse shot under him. In 
the morning among the dead horses was found one with a very 
rich saddle, conjectured to be either Ormond's or one of the 
aforesaid Dukes'. 

Strange to add— and yet not strange, there were at this 
moment (jiiier hearts besides those of the Stuart-Spanish fac- 
tion who would have exulted to see the new occupants of 
Mardyke driven into the sea. These were their French allies. 
Various and doubtful are the allusions scattered over the cor- 
respondence of the hour associating the councils of Mazarin 
and Turenne with the dark scheme of blowing the citadel into 
the air. If Tm-enne had resolved on it, the English could 
hardly have prevented him. Of course it would have been 
equivalent to breaking the Treaty with Cromwell, but then 
it would save France the mortification of first winning and 
then delivering up Dunkirk to him. Loekhart evidently 
thought that the Cardinal's hand must be in it ; and at an 
interview with his Eminence narrated in a letter of 21 No- 
vember, he roundly offered to bring proof that the Captain 
of Turenne's Guards had reached Calais bearing an order for 



DEATH OF SIR JOHN REYNOLDS. 193 

blowing up Mardyke. Now, whence could sucli a missive 
have emanated ? Was it to be supposed that his Eminence 
would stoop to such an action ? As for Tiirenne, he had too 
much sagacity thus to stultify his own tactics. And so be- 
tween compliment and evasion the thing was shuffled out of 
the way, and Lockhart like a wise man did his best to un- 
believe it. 

With all its discomforts therefore Mardyke will continue 
to be held in the English grasp during the winter. Judging 
by the plan of the citadel published in London about this 
time on a folio sheet, the soldiers' quarters must have been 
very straitened, quite confirmatory of Sir John Keynolds's 
lamentable narrative of their sufferings and privations ; but 
then we may conclude that the greater part of the men's time 
was passed in the open country, the houses in the fort just 
sufficing at night to cover their heads. The broad-sheet 
aforesaid, after giving a history of the fortress from its erec- 
tion in 1623, concludes by a reference to the recent attempt 
of the Spaniards to recover it, which, the printer adds, " they 
have not nor could do. This is all we have to wiite of the 
aforesaid port. If there pass anything fm'ther, we will 
advise you." 

DEATH OF SIR JOHN REYNOLDS. 

Monsieur de Marseines above mentioned had been Lieu- 
tenant-general to the Prince de Conde ; he was now filling 
the same position towards the Duke of York, — an able soldier 
and an astute adviser, in great favour also with Charles II. 
who had recently made him a Knight of the Grarter. Soon 
after the affair at Mardyke a rumoui' prevailed that Marseines 
and the Duke had tempted Sir John Reynolds to enter into 
some kind of correspondence with them ; whether amounting 
to a personal interview, seems uncertain. Sir Robert Hony- 
wood writing from the Hague to Sir Walter Vane when the 
news of Reynolds's shipwreck reached that place, says, — 
" The loss of Sir John Reynolds and Colonel White sur- 
prized us much here. Many think he has escaped a more 
ignominious death, not seeing how he could answer what he 
has done at Mardyke in the conference held with Marseines 
and the Duke of York ; all men concluding him to have been 
either false, or more light-headed than was requisite for a man 
in such a charge." This is evidence sufficient to show that a 
rimiour of something like treachery was current, but the 
counter testimony of Lockhart, who had the best opportimity 
of knowing, goes far to vindicate his gallant friend. " It is 



lfJ4 ( \\ii'\i(;\ IN i'i,\M)i;iis. 

/^•ivdii dill," 111' wriius to Tliitrloc, " l)y Homo of Cliarliis 
S(ii;iri'M r.iclioii lioi'o tliat 8()in;'lliin^- ]»iis.S('(l at ihiit ilKHfiiiifi,- 
wliicli I know lid I UoyiioklH ] vn\\\{\ not Ix* capal)!!) of, iinithoi' 
(Id I hi'lli'vc IIkiI any midi iiKM^liin- was." linyiiolds liowi^vci' 
V08olv<'(l io rrpiiir at once io London and S(Hik mii iiilcrvit^w 
w'illi ilu^ I'rotcuiior. (Jdiiirary io advitio lio oniliarkdil in a 
|)iilcli |)in1< of only ono InindiNul ions 1)iinl(Mi, in iliroaionin;^' 
woailicf, ;i,iid Wits casl. away on 1 ho (loodwin sands ; anoilior 
olli(M'c iiaiiicd (iiiloiK'l 1*' rands Wliil(* ])('i'isliin^- at tho same 
i\\\i'.\ ii-ihI a,ll Hid crt^w. Tliis was I'cit as a lioavy blow by 
llio ( Ironnvcd liunii}', to whom linynnlds was allicfd. To 
()liv(U' osjxu'/ially, by wlioso sido ho had Foiij^'ht in years "^'ono 
l)y, tho HOWS Avas (W(^ry way distnnssino- ; but, prompt to 
a,V(U't from ihd widow llio bIiooIc of so unlookocl for a cafas- 
iroplic, h(! dispalchrd a mossoiig'or to tliat hidy wlio was just 
HoKinj^' out fur Loudon, rcupiosting that slio would dohiy hnr 
jouruoy iill fnrlln'i- (onimunication sliould bo scnit hor. 'This 
lady was S:ira.h foiii'th dau;4'hi(U' of Sir l<\'aii(^is liiisscll of 
( 'liippc^nhiun in ( 'andiridf^'nshirc^ and conscipLtqiily sister io 
Jicm'y ( !roni\\('irs wih^ M.er i'ailicr Sir b^-aneis wa.s a veiy 
eiiiiiicni. person for Jiumaniiy and iiiKilVi'etLd Cluistianiiy, 
and 111!' following- letter wliiili he liiid i'(>oontly sent io his 
Hon in law at Mardyk(^ is one of (lie choicest nienioi'ials of 
the a,g'(^ 

tSir Francis liiisscll to Sir ,lohn llci/iiohh^ (iciirnd of llic 
I'hiijlisli forvcs in Fliiiidci's. 

WiiilcliMll, -J I NnvcinlHi' i(;r>7. 
Son lli'iYNoi-DS. — Ac(H)rdin<>' io my ]iromIse and your 
desire, I am now at Whiiikad, and luivi^ solicited his llig'h- 
ness, my lord l<Meetwood, and Mr. Stu'reiary, for your reiurn. 
liis Jlig'hness iolil me Ihat you nhould havo li^ive granted 
you very Buddenly, ;iiid Mr. Secretary likewise said that hini- 
Belf Avould writ-e io yon io let yon know so nnieh. iiut liis 
Jligluu^ss did say when 1 wi'oi.e io him ahoiit ihis busi- 
n(v<s, ihat you musi not expecjt to make any long- iarrying- 
luTo fi'om your emj)lo3'nuMit ; howeviu', 1 ain glad ileit your 
i'ric^nds have* some liopes of seeing* you. Your last letter I 
did receive, nnd 1 have iwo for your wife which I intend to 
send down io lier by ihe post this nig-ht. AVitliin those two 
orihr(>edays I shall n^iurn back l\)r Chippenham; for my 
chicd'est business heri^ was to fullil iliai lov<^ which I ow(* unio 
you. As for news, this ])laci» alfords me but Iiiil(>. All our 
stain alfairs are viay ]»rivaie, and io (>n([iiire or .search ihem 
out is not my l)usiness. 1 ]io})e all things will go well ; yet 



ISIAJOR fiENKRAl- M()R(;AN. 195 

'tis possible all our stato doctors iivo not ol' oim ()[iiiiion. 'Tis 
possiblo tlio wisest of iliom cannot ^-iioss iit ilu^ cvont and 
issue of tliin^^'s, nor say what will l)o brou<>-lit to ])ass in a 
short lime. ITis lli^'lnmss taki^s ihn ])n^soiit of your liorso 
very kiIl(ll3^ I do Ix^Ucvo liis love and rosjuKit towards you 
is V(M'y real. Let theroforo no dark thouj^'lds ovfi-sliadow 
your mind. Keep but all thing's clear and houest at homo iu 
your licart, and that sun Avill scatter all the mists that others 
can cast over your eyes. Mxpccit bad r(*[)ort as well as {j^ood 
to b(^ your ])ortion licro below. A wisti g'ood nuiu is not nuK^li 
concHU'iUMl iit (iilher. Al)ovo all things reini'mbiT (o nuiko a 
wise stout war witli ull your (nunnies wllliin you; I'or (liat 
warfare (iDncorns you most, and tluM'ud ol' i( will 1)(^ ;i, good 
luip])_y i)eae(^ The Lord bless you ii-ud keep you siil'e iuwiirdly 
and outwardly. I have in tliis si^ut you a Icllcr I'roui your 
wife. She will bo glad lo see you, and ready to go aioug 
wiili you to any i)la(!(i you sliall desire Iwr. 1 am, dcnir Sir, 
youi's in all faillifuliuiss. 

I<'k VNCis J{,rssi;i,i,. 

Nothing more was over se(>n of ihe Duleli pink and ils 
freight of souls. A trunk of ('olonel AVhite's aiul a few 
oth(U* ])ersonal arllcles came ashore ojiposiie ihe (loodwin 
sands, just to testify ihat all was lost. As for Sir ejoliu Ivey- 
nolds's wid(jw, wlio inliei'iicid large Ji'ish estnles from her 
husband, she eventuaJly Ix^eaiue iiie second wif(5 of lleiiry 
O'Brien seventh ]<]arl of Thomond, but licr dcsccndauls are 
extinct. By Sir John Keynohls slu) luul no family. TIk! 
old kniglit luT fatlu'r had Ixien noniina<c(l by ( 'romwcll as 
one of tlie lords in his ll^]i]ier ]lous(!, a position which could 
have luul but few charms for liim. Jle survived the Ucstoja- 
(ioii four years, and was buried at Chi])penhani. 

MA JOE GENLIJAL M()K(JAN. 

Sir John iJcynolds A\as succeeded iu his comiuaiid a,i, Maj-- 
dyk(i by a hery lilile Welslnuan known as ]Major-g(!iiej'al 
Tliomas Morgan, Avho, lik(! his ])red(;cef soi-, liad seen liaid 
service in the liome wars. ]l.is naim; lias uoi bc( n piomiueut 
liithorto in Ibis Flanders history, ])ut his vaJoui- luul been ii 
factor w(dl ap])rohendcd by fri(!ud and foe. Jn ilui storming 
of St. A'^emmt for exanqile he nud<(^s it appf^ar iu liis Jourmil 
that the capture of the ])lace was wliclly (lu(! to Uw. iiujM^tuous 
attack of liis division, on Wunv being in a manner twitted l)y 
(Jount Schombcrg for unskilful nuinuuivi'ing in the trencJioH. 
But as wo cannot afford to go back to St, Ycnant now that 



196 CAMPAIGN IN FLANDERS. 

we have got as far as Mardyke, and are in breathless haste to 
escalade Dunkirk, Morgan must be content with the memorial 
of laurels yet to be won. The French it seems thought him 
hardly equal for the post at Mardyke, but the enemy dis- 
covered that he was. Daring the four winter months " there 
was hardly a week," he tells us, " wherein Major-general 
Morgan had not two or three alarms by the Spanish army, 
lie answered to them all ; and never went out of his clothes 
all the winter, except to change his shirt." [He speaks, it 
will be observed, in the third person ; the narrative being 
taken down from dictation in after years.] 

Nor was Lockhart idle. Twice during the period of in- 
action in the field he passed over to England, namely in 
October and April, to organize the ensuing campaign. He 
has now in a great measure recovered his cheerfulness ; and 
the Protector and his Council having come to a fixed resolu- 
tion either that Dunkirk shall be immediately invested or the 
Treaty straightway collapse, all preliminary measures fall 
rapidly into place. Last year, Turenne wasted our forces in 
the interior of the country. Perhaps it was necessary, to 
clear the ground. This year, there shall be no mistake. The 
new levies to reinforce the stipulated Six Thousand will 
speedily embark ; and then by his Eminency the Cardinal's 
favour and young Lewis's plighted faith, we hope soon to 
give a good account of (to adopt Lockhart' s own audacious 
form of expression) " Charles Stuart and the rabble he hath 
with him." The breach between "Our Ambassador" and 
the King of Scots is now wide and yawning indeed. 

In anticipation of the great event of the season, he was 
now unremittingly passing backwards and forwards between 
the French Court and the troops stationed at Mardyke and 
Bourbourg, strengthening the former place, laying his plans 
with Turenne, and making incessant demands on the home 
Grovernment for coals, hay, and pallisades. Nor does he lose 
sight of the need of moral agencies to temper and control the 
spirits of the men fretting in their narrow quarters at Mar- 
dyke; though in this object there is reason to think he totally 
lacked the sjrmpathy of his fiery Major-general Morgan, who, 
holding the active command of Mardyke, viewed Lockhart's 
supervision with impatience and jealousy. To Thurloe, 
Lockhart says, 17 May, — " I find not one minister here ; and 
out of charity have sent for my chaplain from Calais. The 
soldiers need much to be both dehorted from evil and ex- 
horted to good. If you will send over three ministers, they 
may very well serve the six regiments ; and I engage myself 
to procure them <£180 sterling per annum apiece, which I 



OPENING OF THE SECOND CAMrAIGN. 197 

think is encouragement enough to any honest man who hath 
zeal for his Master's service or the propagation of his 
gospel. The popish priests who go a-begging to vent their 
errors, will rise up in judgment against our ministers who 
cannot be yet persuaded, even upon reasonable terms, to 
preach the glad tidings of salvation to their poor countrymen 
who have some longings after the ordinances of Glod." 

His letters from the Court during the spring would also be 
found full of racy gossip, where there space to enlarge. His 
esteem for the Cardinal is evidently on the increase, especially 
as he watches the backstair movements of the papal foe, who 
can hardly be kept from open war, and are foaming at the 
influence which his Eminence still maintains over the young 
King. The narrative of one of his interviews closes thus, — 
" His Eminence at parting gave me the enclosed libel, Avhich, 
though a most wicked piece, contains notliing save the opinion 
of the generality of the clergy and other bigots here ; — and 
told me, his enemies had recompensed the injury they had 
done him by giving him the honour of putting him in the 
same category with his Highness. I beg that after your 
lordship's perusal of it, it may be' sent to my Lord Faucon- 
berg." Another present from his Eminence takes the form 
of four barbs, knowing the Protector's admu-ation of thorough- 
breds. They are now landing at Marseilles ; and Lockhart 
hoping to sail in a few days, proposes to carry two of them 
to England with him. He relates his friend's matrimonial 
schemes thus, — Mademoiselle Mancini one of the Cardinal's 
nieces is to be married to Prince Eugene son to Prince Thomas 
of Savoy ; and another of his nieces is to marry the Duke de 
Bouillon's son, the heir-designate of Tm'enne, who also is to 
have new honours conferred. " These news," he adds, " are 
of no extraordinary importance, yet they declare how exactly 
this great and wise man observes times and seasons, and how 
careful he is to make hay while the sun shines." But the 
sun-shiny picture is reversed in a few days. One of the 
Mancini nephews, [so we learn from another source] being at 
play in the Jesuits' College, where they use to toss one another 
in a blanket, they let him fall and bruised his head, whereof he 
died on the 6th of January. The Cardinal is very sorry for 
his death." D'Ovmcisson to Bordeaux. The following is a 
noteworthy statement. In a conversation with Lockhart in 
February 1658 he begged him to assure the Protector that 
there was no doubt as to the reality of conspii-acies both at 
home and abroad against his person and sovereignty. IPs 
own belief was that the strategists would fail ; but should it 
happen otherwise, " he offers," says Lockhart, "to assist your 



198 CAMPAIGN IN FLANDERS. 

Highness at liis own expence Avitli a body of six or eiglit 
thousand men, for whose fidelity and zeal for your service he 
will answer." From which observation, which Lockhart 
evidently regarded as made in good faith, coupled with various 
other intimations too numerous to be grouped in this place, it 
may not unreasonbly be gathered tliat the oft-repeated joke 
about Mazarin's fearing Cromwell more than the Devil is 
hardly a fair explanation of the case. Is it not more 
rational to suppose that the terms on which those two eminent 
men stood were based on a measure of sympathy and personal 
esteem beyond the mere freemasonry common to rulers ? To 
be loaded with reproaches by the agents of Rome, as Mazarin 
was, never carried condemnation at any time ; but rather 
serves to corroborate that more credible hypothesis respecting 
him that. Cardinal though he Avas, he shared the Protector's 
contempt for the effeminacies and treacheries which were still 
leao'ue<l to crusli the rising manhood of France, and of Europe 
too. Miglit not this partly account for his alliance with Sweden, 
and his willingness, expressed to Lockhart, that the King of 
Sweden should supplant Austria in the monarchy of the Holy 
lilmpire? He was even threatened with excommunication 
from Home ; so at least Lockhart asserts Avhen writing to 
Thurloe in January 1658 ; and adds, — " The Cardinal hath 
had a very hot bout of late with the Nuncio, and is not likely 
to be frighted with their paper engines." The following scene 
is narrated in another of Lockhart's letters, (sent in Decem- 
ber, though like many of his missives it never reached its 
destination, being intercepted by the Stuart emissaries.) He 
had been conveying to the Cardinal his Highness's deep sense 
of obligation for the friendly warnings sent him of personal 
danger, when, says he, " the Cardinal rose from his chair, 
and embracing me said, he perceived that I had mistaken 
him ; protesting that none of these stories from England 
stuck Avith him ; and prayed me to take no notice of what he 
had said in that [last letter ?] to his Highness, for he now 
told me his regrets for the same as a particular friend and 
not as a public minister." And then midertook to write to 
Flanders to make further inquisition. Clarciido)i''s Pc/pers. 

Before active operations were commenced in the field, it 
now only remains to state, that our prudent Ambassador 
deemed it advisable that his family should remove to England. 
" The Lady Lockhart, Avife to the Ambassador of the great 
ally of France," writes Kingstonn, " took her leave on 
Thm-sday last of the Queen of France ; and, as became her 
quality, had the honour' of the tanboret given her." Such is 
the report from Paris, 27 April, 1658. 









Dunkirk. 

1658. 




PREPARATIONS FOR 199 



The Siege of Dunkirk. 

Tlie first aggressive action in the Spring brings into notice 
Admiral Groodson, who, having got it into his head that Oliver 
was to possess the entire sea-board of Flanders, imprudently 
lent his boats to a small French force under Marshal D'Au- 
mont in hopes of surprizing the well-defended port of Ostend. 
The invading force was precipitately driven off; for the 
failm^e of the enterprise was due to the treachery of a French 
ally within the walls who betrayed them to tJieir ruin. Oliver 
alludes to it in a subsequent letter. The attempt was no 
doubt premature, though it is perfectly true that the Cardinal 
once and again threw out hints to Lockhart in favour of an 
English occupation of Ostend. See especially Lockhart's letter 
of July 17—27 1658. T/nirloc, VII. 279. 

Another partial action was a renewed assault on Gra^'clines 
by the forces mider Morgan at Mardyke combined with those 
uncler Count Schomberg who commanded at Bourbourg ; 
wlaich also was without practical result. 
^ Preparations for the investment of Dimkirk, then -lield for 
Spain by the Marquis of Leyda, were made in May. This 
was the point to which all eyes were now timied. The 
French Court advanced as near the scene of action as Avas 
deemed prudent ; and Cromwell improved the auspicious 
moment by sending across the Channel his son in law Lord 
Fauconberg as the bearer of courteous salutations to the King 
and Cardinal. The documents which he carried were four in 
number, written in Latin, and are said to have been auto- 
graph ; though this, considering the Protector's then slate of 
health, is more than doubtful. Their final form, though of 
course not their substance, we know to have been the handi- 
work of John Milton. The first to be noticed is the official 
message addressed 

To the serene and potent prince Louis Kinrj of France, our 
aufjust friend and alhj. 

No sooner was the news brought that your Majesty had 
reached your camp and sat down in such force before Dunkirk 
that stronghold and refuge of pirates, than I entertained the 
joyful bope that now at last by God's blessing tiie seas might 
be navigated without fear of sea-robbers. And may ^-our 
Majesty's arms speedily take vengeance on Spanish frauds, 
through which one Captain has by gold been corrupted to the 



200 CAMPAIGN IN FLANDEDS. 

betraying of Hesclin, and anotlier perfidiously surprized at 
Ostend. I am therefore sending the most noble Viscount 
Fauconberg my son in law, to hail your Majesty's arrival in 
a camp so near to our shores, and to express personally that 
your Majesty's affairs engage not only our steadfast alliance 
but our constant prayers that the great Grod woidd preserve 
you from harm ; and that our mutual friendship, so long as 
it lasts, may serve the Christian cause. Your Majesty's most 
affectionate, Oliver P. 

From our Court at 
Whitehall, May, 1G58. 

Two letters, same date, are for the Cardinal's hand, both 
indicating that the salutation carried by Lord Fauconberg to 
the King was designed to embrace his Eminence at the same 
time. The following to the King on the same topic is of a 
more personal kind, and shews that Oliver is seeking to drop 
the diplomatic " We " in his correspondence with the French 
court. 

To the King of France oiw august friend and co> federate. 

My son in law Thomas Viscount Fauconberg is about to 
pass into France, with the desire, out of his respect and venera- 
tion for your Majesty, to kiss the royal hand. And though 
his pleasant conversation makes me unwilling to part 
with him ; yet being sensible that his sojourn at a Coiu-t long 
celebrated as the resort of prudent and valiant persons can- 
not but render him more fully equipped for gallant service at 
home, I was the less disposed to resist his inclination. And 
though he is one who, unless I am deceived, can sufficiently 
commend himself wherever he goes, yet if he shall for my 
sake taste somewhat more of your Majesty's favour, the 
benefit will be adjudged as laying me imder affectionate 
obligation. May Grod long preserve yom- Majesty and the 
peace between us as a lasting benefit to the Christian world. 

Oliver P. 

Fauconberg took over with him a retinue of a hundred 
persons, including one of the Howard lords. They had two 
ships and three horse-boats ; but the passage was so rough 
that the vessels parted company, and Fauconberg landed at 
Calais in miserable trim late on Saturday night, 29 May, 
ignorant of the fate of many of his men and horses. The 
sumptuous reception which had been awaiting him formed 
quite a satire on the forlorn condition in which he stepped 



201 

ashore ; — but his own words will best tell the story. — " At 
my approach I could but wonder to discover such infinite 
numbers of all sorts of people along the coast and upon the 
wall, the King himself, the Queen, and the Duke of Anjou, 
in a box built I think for the occasion ; though the posture I 
entered in, answered nothing theu" expectation, having only 
my two ship-boats, which all the rhetoric I had could not 
persuade my company to fill. The Count de Charost, governor 
of the town, stood ready at the pier by the King's order to 
receive me, with eight or ten coaches. Immediately after my 
arrival, most persons of quality in town came to salute me ; 
but particularly from his Eminence came the captain of his 
guards, — from his Majesty, the Duke de Crequi, — from the 
Queen, the Count d'Orvall, son to the famous Duke of Sully, 
— and from the Duke of Anjou, the Marquis d'Hiantelle, — 
all to compliment me and lament the disaster of my journey. 
The King's own Switzers guard my door. All his officers 
and the Queen's are appointed to attend me at meals. The 
Duke de Crequi had orders to have supped with me ; but 
finding me so exceedingly out of order, left me to retire. In 
short, the same orders that have formerly been given for the 
entertainment of the Dulces of Modena and Mantua and 
others are now for my reception. The Count de Charost 
acquainted me at my landing how much the King desired to 
see me and to know by me of his Highness's health ; and to 
that end told me his Majesty intended to give me audience 
tomorrow [Sunday] which I endeavom-ed to excuse, saying 
it would be an inten-uption to their Majesties' devotions, as I 
conceived, and was a day which ought by me to be set apart 
for other matters. This, with other endeavours which I 
intend to use, will I hope free me from any trouble tomorrow. 
As to the siege of Dunkirk, by the little discourse I have 
have had with the Duke de Crequi, Chevalier Grrammont, 
and others, I find they infinitely esteem my Lord Lockhai-t 
for his courage, care, and enduring the fatigue, beyond all 
men they ever saw. These were their own words. The 
enemy's army they say are ten thousand horse and eight or 
nine thousand foot. Om- forces, French and English, will be 
tomorrow eighteen thousand within the lines, besides what 
the King hath here, and six thousand horse which the 

Marshal Le Fronte commands up in the country 

The besieged have made two sallies, one upon the French 
quarters, the other upon the English ; both were repulsed. 
I do not hear that the King hath any intention of retm-ning 
suddenly thither, on account of the Spanish army's approach, 
Monsieur de Crequi tells me he [the young kiug] resembles 



202 CAMPAIGN IX FLANDEKS. 

SO perfectly his grandfather that, should anything of action 
happen, they would be in danger of losing the gallantest 
prince they ever had." 

The gallant prince therefore having at the earnest solicita- 
tions of Turenue fallen back to Calais, it was there that the 
Embassy from the Lord Protector of England paid their 
homages, on the 31st of May 1658. On alighting from his 
coach Lord Fauconberg was received by the Cardinal in 
person, who also on various occasions gave him the right 
hand. Even the King would remain uncovered during their 
various audiences ; and for the five daj's that the visit lasted, 
not only was the English envoy entertained like a sovereign 
prince, but two sumptuous tables were furnished for his 
retinue at the public expense, — honours of so unusual a kind 
that great olfence was thereby given to the Pope's Nuncio 
and to all the other foreign ministers present. At the au- 
dience for leave-taking, his Majesty presented him v/ith a 
gold box inlaid with diamonds, the lid being decorated ex- 
ternally with tlie arms of France and inside with the King's 
miniature, the whole valued at five thousand crowns. Gold 
medals moreover were presented to several gentlemen of the 
]^nglish train, and a thousand louis d'ors distributed among 
the servants. The Cardinal's gift consisted of a dozen pieces 
of Grenoese velvet and a set of Gobelin tapestry. 

Just as Lord Fauconberg was embarking for England, the 
news reached Turenne that the Stuart-Spanish army was 
advancing along the coast from Nieuport to relie-s'e the be- 
sieged city. It will be seen by reference to the accompanying 
map that Turenne's lines of contrevallation were themselves 
environed by a cordon of hostile towns, to wit, Fm-nes, Nieu- 
port, Ypres, Winox-bergh, St. Omer, Gravelines, and Plesdin. 
With a view to check their disturbing infiuence, he had, it is 
true, proposed to eft'ect at least the recovery of Ilesdin first, 
which had just been lost by treachery ; ancl indeed he would 
gladly have found any professional excuse for declining the 
Dunkirk affair altogether, but the master-mind of the Car- 
dinal kept him to his duty. At the same time it is to be 
observed that though the Spanish garrisons seem to be peril- 
ously near, he was in reality protected from them by the 
drowning of the land along the course of the canals of Pergh 
and Les Moeres, occasioned by the opening of their sluices 
twelve years previously, a mode of defence adopted by the 
Marcjuis de Leyda when besieged in 1646. (Nor was the 
land effectually reclaimed till 1754, 108 years after.) At the 
time of Tiu-enne's investment, there was sufilcient dry land 
for his operations between the city and the Pergh inunda- 



COUNCII; OF WAR. 203 

tion. The sea-coast therefore was the only route by which a 
relieving Spanish army could approach. 

At the council of war which Tiu-enne now called, and 
which consisted entirely of French, the proposition submitted 
was whether the crown of France would not be exposed to 
great hazard if every thing were left to the issue of battle in 
so strait a country intersected as it Avas with canals and 
ditches ; and another danger apprehended was that the >Span- 
iards might endeavour to raise the siege by making a dash 
between tlie French and English camps along what Avas called 
the Bank de Bergh. And the final resolve was that if the 
invaders came on, the investment of Dunkirk should be 
abandoned. This disgraceful determination reached the ears 
of Morgan in half-an-hour, who forthwith repaired to Lock- 
hart's quarters only to learn that the English Grenoral had 
like himself been left out of the council. At this moment 
a nobleman arrived to say that a second sitting would be held 
the next morning in the Marshal's tent. Lockhart resolved 
to go, though he was suffering greatly from the stone or 
gravel, — one of the most violent fits, he afterwards told 
Thurloe, that he had ever experienced. At the council table 
Turenne opened proceedings by regretting his forgotfulness 
in failing to summon the English commanders, and he now 
wished them to hear the case re-stated. The old arguments 
were again passing round the board, when Morgan broke in 
impetuously and delivered himself thus. — As for the imprac- 
ticable nature of the ground, this applied to one army as well 
as to the other ; — that the Spaniards would attempt the Bank 
de Bergh Avhere only eight could march abreast, was simjaly 
chimerical, for the French artillery could mow them doAvn at 
leisure ; — their plan of attack beyond all doubt would be to 
cross the canal de Fumes and offer battle upon the sands. 
Then again, what dishonour would cover the fiag of France 
if, after we had broken ground before Dunldrk, we should 
quit the place and run away. And lastly, the council must 
be well aware that should the siege be raised, the alliance 
with England Avould be at an end. Turenne made answer, 
that if the enemy Avere really willing to offer so fair a game 
as that, namely to fight on the sands, the challenge must be 
accepted ; but in this event, his [Tm^enne's] OAvn camp Avhich 
was on the east of the toAvn would be the point in danger ; 
and therefore the English, Avho Avere posted on the Avest, must 
quit their gaaoi ground and form a junction Avith him. For 
the English to do so, Avould of com'se expose all tlieir siege- 
Avorks, tents, huts, and furniture, to certain destruction ; but 
Morgan had no sooner heard Turenne's proposition, than he 



204 CAMPAIGN IN i'LAKDERS. 

rose from the board, went down on his knees, and " begged 
a battle," declaring that he was quite ready to venture the 
entire Six Thousand English, every soul of them, and leave 
the leaguer to take care of itself. This sort of appeal was ir- 
resistible. *' If Monsieur Morgan," said tlie Marshal, "will 
just take a turn or two outside the tent, he shall be called in 
presently." He took his two turns accordingly, and when 

Bummoned in, was cheered by the announcement, " We 

have considered your reasons; and myself and the council 
have resolved to give battle to the enemy if they come (^n. 
At the same time it will be necessary to maintain the siege 
on the east or Nieuport side. Your part will simply be to 
make conjunction with the French army." Morgan's quiet 
reply was, — " With God's assistance we shall be able to deal 
with them." 

The very next day, the Spanish General had, as Morgan 
predicted, crossed the canal of Fumes and drawn up his army 
on the sands of Dunkirk within two leagues distance, on the 
east or Nieuport side of the town ; and orders were therefore 
immediately sent to the leaguer on the Mardyke side to sum- 
mon the English forward. This they promptly executed in 
the course of the night, with the preliminary service, a 
very harassing one, of having to march back to Mardyke, 
there to deposit their baggage and siege-materiel. 

Lockhart had just parted with Lord Howard, who, as one 
of Earl Fauconberg,s retinue, weighed anchor for England at 
the moment when Tm'enne's messenger arrived. " I was 
much surprized," he wiites, " with the shortness of the warn- 
ing, and more with the strange providence that was in it ; 
for I had one of the most violent fits of the stone upon me 
that ever I almost had in my life. But finding there was no 
midst but either fighting or abandoning the siege, I chose 
rather to trust God with the event of a battle than to give 
over so hopeful a cause. So, about ten o'clock I drew out 
the forces and put myself^ at their head in my coach, and 
reached M. Tm'enne's quarters next morning. We spent 
some three hours in putting our forces in battle, and about 
eight o'clock the march began." 

Turenne's army had a centre of French and English in- 
fantry, the English under Morgan being next the sea. Each 
wing consisted of three thousand horse, preceded by five 
cannons, — that on the right being commanded by the Duke 
de Crequi ; — that on the left, which marched along the strand, 
the horn' of low tide having been chosen, and seconded by a 
body of English foot, was commanded by the Mai-quis de 
Castelnau and Count Schomberg. The infantry altogether 
numbered about eight thousand. 



MARCH TO MEET THE SPANIARDS. 205 

The opposing Spanish forces in position at this moment 
between Siiydcooto and the sea were under the direction of 
Don John of Austria and Greneral Carracena. Their prin- 
cipal ally was Louis Bourbon the renowned Prince de Oonde, 
the great Conde, as his admirers have ever called him, — at 
that time at feud with the French court, and fighting on the 
side of the enemies of his country. He with a body of the 
French noblesse who followed his pennon, had on the present 
occasion the management of the Spanish left wing consistino* 
of four thousand horse, stationed in the meadows of Suyd- 
coote close to the canal of Furnes, which canal here for 
several miles runs near to and parallel with the coast line. 
Nearer the shore throughout this district the land is strewn 
with little sand-hillocks called dunes (hence the name of the 
town of Dunkii'k,) of irregular form and very partially 
covered with vegetation. The sand is extremely white in 
colour and fine in grain, — very difiicult to march in, and 
aptly answering to Morgan's phraseology when he pictures 
the French cavalry as " powdering " along. On the most 
inaccessible of these dunes Don John arranged the mass of 
the Spanish infantry in lines extending down to high-water 
mark ; and behind tliese were posted the Stuart cavahy led 
on by the two English Dukes of York and G-loucester. In 
numbers there was not much disparity between the two 
armies, but in artillery the Spaniards were greatly deficient. 

It was not believed in the Spanish camp that Turenne 
would take the initiative. On the morning of the day of 
battle, Conde riding forward with the Duke of York as far 
as the vedettes, could plainly perceive that Turenne was on 
the move ; but returning to give the Spanish generals the 
alarm, his announcement was received with incredulity. 
Piqued at their indifference he turned to the young Duke of 
Grloucester in the presence of them all, and asked him if had 
ever witnessed the winning of a battle ? " No," said the 
DiLke ; — " Then in half an hour," rejoined Conde, " you will 
see how a battle is lost." 



THE BATTLE OF THE DUNES, 1658. 

The part which Greneral Lockhart took in the ensuing 
actipn will be duly recorded; but as the narrative of his 
Major-general is unique in its kind, and abounds with those 
touches of colom' and form on which old soldiers love to 
enlarge, it may be best to give preference to the second in 
command, premising as we must, that his manifest feelings 



206 CAMPAIGN IN FI-ANDERS. 

of jealousy towards Lockharfc render his statements wlierever 
the (jreneral is concerned ungenerous and unjust. Through- 
out tlio following description tlierefore of the thi-ee mile march 
along the Dunes and the brilliant charge of tlie Six Thousand, 
Morgan's narrative, abridged or modified as tlie case may be, 
will constitute the basis; and his own phraseology will in the 
main be preserved. He speaks of himself it will be observed 
in tlie third person. 

Very early on the morning of the 1 1th of June Marshal 
Tiu'enne gave orders to break avenues through the two lines 
of circuravallation and contrevallation, that the armies might 
march out in battalia. While Morgan and his officers were 
superintending the English pioneers, Mr. Ambassador Lock- 
harfc drove up, with a white cap on his head, and addressed 
liim thus, " You see what condition I am in. I am not able 
to give you any assistance this day ; but you are the older 
soldier, and the principal work must lie upon your shoulders." 
This caused the officers to smile ; upon which he invoked the 
divine blessing on their enterprize, and rode away with the 
Lieut.-general of the horse. [tSchomberg ?] From that time 
we never saw him till we were in pursuit of the enemy. 

The barriers being passed, we were compelled to advance in 
four lines, not having between the Furnes Canal and the sea, 
sufficient room to wing ; but on the completion of the first 
half mile, wo lialted among the sand-hills, and liaving more 
room, took in two of our lines. Clearly discerning the enemy 
from this point, Morgan exclaimed, " See, yonder are the 
gentlemen you have to trade withal." Upon which the Avhole 
brigade of English gave a shout of rejoicing that made a 
roaring echo betwixt the sea and the canal. Marslial Turenne 
riding- up with above a hmidred noblemen, asked to know 
what was the matter, and the reason of that great shout ? 
Morgan told him, it was the usual custom Avith the lledcoats 
when they saw the enemy, to rejoice. " Well, you are men 
of brave resolution and courage," rejoined the Marshal, and 
rode back to the head of his own cavalry. A second halt of 
the English when within three quarters of a mile of the 
enemy produced another shout, the men casting their caps 
into the air, and saying, they would have better hats before 
night. Turenne and his officers again rode up, and directed 
the English to preserve a level front with the French, as he 
would have to examine the Spanish position before deciding 
on the plan of attack. Morgan was anxious to know whether 
it was his intention to shock the whole army at one dash, or 
to try one wing first ? On that point the Marshal could not 
resolve him jet, till they were nearer the enemy. " But let me 



^ 



MOH'JAN's NVilUATlVE. 207 

lot languish for orders," said Morgan, " for ofi:enfcim3.3 op- 
portunities are lost for want of orders in due time." — " I will 
either come myself and give orders," repliel Turenni, " o.- 
send a lieutenant-general." 

To keep his men from pressing too forward, Morgan rol^ 
some distance in advance and told them ho would hold up Ills 
hat when he discovered the l^rench lialting. But heedless of this 
signal, the Redcoats pushed on till they were witliin range of 
the enemy's firelocks ; when perceiving that the Major- 
general was in a passion, they brought themselves to a stand. 
But musket shot distance in those days was also talking dis- 
tance ; and the infantry opposed to Morgan's left comprizing 
many English royalists, the men on both sides began to in- 
terchange salutations, or, to follow our authority, " fell into 
great friendship," — one asking, "Is such an officer in your 
army ?" — another, " Is such a soldier in yours ?" And this 
continued for some time, till the Major- general's small stock 
of patience being exhausted, he advanced to the centre of his 
lines, and demanded how long that friendship vv'as going to 
continue ? because, said he, " for anything they knew, they 
would be cutting one another's throats within a minute of an 
hour." The brigade answered, " It should continue no 
longer than he pleased — " Then tell the enemy," he said, 
" No more friendship. Prepare your buff-coats and scarfs, 
for we will be with you sooner than you expect us." The 
Spaniards' immediate reply was a volley of shot into one of 
our battalions, by which three or four were wounded and one 
dropped. 

It was now time to know what Turenne's intentions were, 
and an adjutant was dispatched to let him know that we had 
already received prejudice from the enemy's fire. The mes- 
senger came not back ; and Morgan observing that the 
Spaniards were " mending faults " and opening intervals in 
their foot to bring their horse into action, he at once called 
the colonels together and proposed an immediate charge on 
the enemy's right wing, such attack to bo executed by " a 
forlorn" consisting of parts of the two regiments under 
Lockhart's command, called the AVhite Regiment and the 
Blue Regiment, and a body of four hundred firelocks under 
Captain Uevaux. Some discrepancy exists as to the names of 
the officers who led tliem into action. Roger Penwick, who 
was Lockhart's own lieut. colonel of the blue regiment, seems 
to have conducted the general assault, and the credit may be 
equally divided between himself, Colonels Henry Lilling- 
stone and Roger Allsop, and lieut. colonels Ilaynes and Bar- 
ringtou. At Fenwick's side also fought one described as 



208 CAMPAIGN IN FLANDERS. 

'' that noble young gentleman Mr. Henry Jones of Oxford- 
shire " who had come over in Lord Fauconberg's train ; but 
instead of returning to England with his master, preferred 
remaining behind to take part in the bloody fray as a volun- 
teer. We shall hear of him again. The remainder of Lock- 
hart's regiments had been stationed on the strand, to operate 
with the three thousand French horse uader the Marquis de 
Castelnau who formed the extreme left. At the present 
moment when their presence was so much needed tliese three 
thousand horse were far in the rear. 

In dismissing the Forlorn on their perilous charge, Morgan 
told them that if himself were not knocked on the head he 
would soon come to their assistance. The other English regi- 
ments under his command, five in number, were ordered not 
to move till they saw that the Forlorn had shocked the 
enemy's right wing off the ground ; nor had they long to 
wait. This right wing was seen to be posted on one of the 
highest ridges of the Dunes, where they had thrown up the 
sand breast-high, and where the difficulty of reaching them, 
owing to the treacherous nature of the ground, seemed to 
render their position unassailable ; while at the only prac- 
ticable point the Cromwellians found that they coidd ascend 
with no more than ten abreast. But this difficulty being 
promptly faced, they soon came to " push of pike." the fire- 
locks helping their comrades in advance up the steep, and 
sustaining them with their musket-rests.* As soon as the 
English colom's were seen flying over the Dunes, the mus- 
keteers clubbing their weapons, adopted a style of fighting 
before which the Spanish pikemen rapidly recoiled ; but at 
this moment a body of cavaliers under James Duke of York 
rode into the melee and inflicted considerable damage on the 
]31ue Eegiment, whose every officer, with one exception, they 
either killed or took prisoner. Now we must go back to 
Morgan. 

The Major-general, when he saw his opportunity, stepped 
to the other five regiments, which were within six score paces 
of him, and ordered them to advance and charge imme- 
diately. But when they came within ten pikes length, the 
enemy perceiving that they were not able to endure our 
charge, shako'd their hats, held up their handkerchiefs and 
called for quarter ; but the Eedcoats cried aloud, " They had 
no leism-e for quarter." Whereupon the enemy faced about 



'• " Ceux de derriere soutenant de leur mousquet." 
ceux de devant avec lea crosses Belidor. 



morgan's narrative. 209 

and fell to rimuing, having the English colours over their 
heads, and the strongest soldiers and officers clubbing them 
down ; so that the Six Thousand English carried ten or 
twelve thousand horse and foot before them. The rest of the 
Spanish army, seeing their right wing carried away and the 
English colours flying over their heads, wheeled about in as 
good order as they could ; so that we had the whole Spanish 
army before us. Major-general Morgan called out to the 
colonels, "To the right as much as you can," that so we 
might have all the enemy's army under the English colours. 
The Six Thousand carried all the Spanish army as far as from 
Westminster Abbey to Paul's Chm-chyard before ever a 
Frenchman came in on either wing of us. But then at last 
we could see the French horse come powdering on each wing 
with much gallantry ; but they never struck one stroke, they 
only carried prisoners back to the camp. Neither did we ever 
see the Ambassador Lockhart till we were in pursuit of the 
enemy ; and then we could see him amongst us very brisk, 
without his white cap on his head, and neither troubled with 
gravel nor stone. When we were at the end of the pursuit, 
Marshal Tm'enne and above a hundred officers came up to us, 
quitted their horses, embraced the English officers, and said, 
" They never saw a more glorious action in their lives, and 
that they were so transported with it that they had no power 
to move or to do any thing. And this high compliment we 
had for our pains. In a word, the French army did not 
strike one stroke in the battle of Dunkirk, — only the Six 
Thousand English. After we had done pursuing the enemy, 
Major-general Morgan rallied his forces and marched over 
the sands where we had shocked them at first, to see what 
slaughter there was made. But Ambassador Lockhart went 
into the camp as fast as he could, to write his letters for 
England of what great service he had done, which was just 
nothing. 

Such was our doughty Welshman's view of the battle of 
the Dunes; and after comparing it with various other 
narrations, there is reason to think that, so far as it fell 
within his ken, it is not far from the truth. Our &st 
correction must have reference to Lockhart's share in the 
transaction. That he was totally disabled from taking an 
active part, and was therefore under the necessity of leaving 
the handling of the troops to his lieutenant, is sufficiently 
clear. Though therefore it is more than probable that he 
reached the scene of action in his coach, it must have been 
with his joint concm-rence that the attack was made on the 
Spaniard's right wing ; simultaneously with which, the de- 



210 CAMPAIGN IN FLANDERB. 

taohment of his regiment posted on the strand was directed 
by him to take the enemy in flank. And this movement it 
was which, all unperceived by Morgan, completed the rout. 
Let us now hear the General tell his own tale. It occurs in 
the dispatch which Morgan has just been treating so discour- 
teously. 

" The enemy kept his ground until we should 

come up to him. I, having the command of the left wing, 
rencountered the right of the enemy where all his old 
Spaniards were, and posted so advantageously, that when I 
considered my work, I looked upon forcing them as altogether 
impossible. But necessity having no law, I ordered my own 
regiment to attempt it before [in front] ; and at the same time 
having some commanded men upon the strand which were to 
have seconded the horse, I made them attack the Spanish 
upon the flank ; and after the hottest dispute that I ever saw, 
it pleased Grod to give us success ; and with that advantage, 
that the enemy seeing their best men forced in their most 
advantageous post, did not in all the rest of the battle behave 
themselves as I expected. The rout was universal, but not 
so closely pursued by the French horse as I could have wished 

The truth is, my lord, I have fallen asleep I know 

know not how often while writing this ; and so shall only 
pray that we may be made sensible of the good hand of God 
which hath been wonderfully with us this day. I pray for 
the continuance of his Highness's health and the increase of 
his glory and happiness. 

The accompanying plan of the battle is designed to exhibit 
the position of the forces just before the assault on the Dunes. 
Morgan's men, it will be observed, have advanced ahead of 
their French allies. Lockhart's position is on the strand ; 
and as the Spaniards had no forces at that spot, we under- 
stand at once the value of Lockhart's movement, in turning 
them. 

Now we seem to know all about the fighting near the 
shore ; but it is reasonable to conclude that among the Suyd- 
coote meadows by the canal of Furnes where the two hostile 
wings of cavalry met, the great Conde on the one side and the 
Duke de Crequi on the other, something very chivalrous may 
have been passing, though far beyond the reach of Daffy 
Morgan's observation. Of course, wherever Conde and 
Turenne are concerned, there are few French historians who 
can resist the temptation of indulging in the Homeric afflatus, 
and the battle of the Dunes forms no exception. They are 
compelled to admit that " Le choc commenca par les Anglois 
avcc cette bravoure et cette intrepidite qui lew- est si naturelle ;" 




Siuydcoote. 



BATTI.E OF THE Dunes . 

A Fr^r<^ Uft wtng <>t' hcr^e, vcrtdcr Cccsi^lru^u. 

i> :^endz ri^-hJ: ^W of hor,., u^^cUr Be Crcoui. 

lu LockhaH'i reserve, on ike sirccrtd . 

S fSpanish righh ^mg o/" irvfccrvhy . 

T" I>i^J{e ofTorlf^-'s ccujcclie.rj^. 

^ Spuyii^sh Uft wm.g ofhvrsc, urtd^r Co,-vd^ . 



ROUT OF THE SPANIARDS. 211 

but after this, little is visible but French cavaliers charging 
like the whirlwind and cutting Spanish squadrons in pieces. 
Cond^ with his troop of knights is seen hewing his way till 
his horse is shot beneath him in the vain endeavour to force 
a passage through to join the Dunkirkers, till Turenne who 
watches the struggle from the top of a Dune and fears that 
De Crequi will be overborne, brings up his reserves ; and the 
battle sweeps along the dykes of Fm^nes. And true it is that 
the wreck of the Spanish host was chased to the very gates 
of that town ; but on re-passing the field of slaughter it was 
perceived that of the two thousand five hundred Spaniards 
and English royalists who fell in fight, the principal part lay 
just where the strife began. " In this action," says one re- 
porter, Robert Beak,* " the English have got the testimony 
of French, Swiss, and the vanquished enemy, for their valour 
and gallantry. Grod has honoured the nation by this poor 
handful, and I hope they will be yet more victorious." There 
can in fact be no reasonable doubt that when Don John's in- 
fantry and the Duke of York's cavaliers were seen retreating 
before Morgan's clubmen, the whole of the Spanish left under 
Conde took to flight also. " Morgan's men," sa;ys another 
correspondent, " came on at a good trot, but it was faster 
than Monsieur's gallop." And if any cavalry had been at 
his disposal, he would have done much more than carry the 
Spanish army, as he quaintly expresses it, " as far as from 
Westminster Abbey to Paul's Churchyard." He would have 
killed or captui-ed every man of them, and Dunkirk would 
have been another Dunbar. 

As it was, the prisoners were very nimierous ; and the 
French when they had once disarmed them were very in- 
different about keeping them. General Carracena was cap- 
tured, but the soldiers who held him took a bribe and let him 
go. The Duke of York's coach was taken, but its interesting 
freight was far out of reach. The news that himself or his 
brother of Grloucester had sufitered damage reached his mother 
in Paris, whose congratulatory message on hearing of their 
safety may be read in Mrs. Grreen's Letters of Queen 
Henrietta-Maria. 

Thurloe narrating the victory to Henry Cromwell, thinks 
that the Spaniards lost their entire body of infantry. Among 



* Robert Beak, judged by his band of Levin a daughter of 

name to be related to the Crom- Roger Whitstone and Catharine 

well family. Richard Beke of Cromwell the Protector's third 

Buckinghamshire was the hus- sister. 



212 CAMPAIGN IN FLANDERS. 

SO many prisoners there must have been several of the Crom- 
wellian deserters of the previous year's campaign ; but Lock- 
hart does not appear to have retaliated, except in the case of 
one sergeant whom he caused to be hung in defiance of " a 
high message " carried by a trumpet from the Duke of York. 
" I sent the Dulve," says he, " an answer that did not please 
him I think very well, and I refused the sergeant's life to a 
great many French officers that would have begged him. I 
have ventm^ed to do this without a commission ; and though 
his Highness's letter to me empowers me to govern his forces 
according to the discipline of war, yet I am sometimes puzzled 
in my own spirit as being sometimes necessitated to proceed 
too far upon so slender power as I have." 

Of the Cromwellian officers who distinguished themselves 
the names are preserved of Colonels Salmon, G-ibbons, Lilling- 
ston, Sir Bryce Cockran, Clarke, AUsop, and Drummond, 
Lieut. -colonels Roger Fenwick, Barrington, Haynes, Cap- 
tains Devaux, Eaton, Harrison, Flower, and Fleetwood. 
Fenwick lingered for some days, and his loss was greatly de- 
plored by Lockhart, who offered him the soldier's consolation 
that his bones should rest within the walls of Dunkirk. 
Henry Jones of Oxfordshire, mentioned above as fighting at 
Fenwick's side, became wounded in three places, when, 
moimting a cavalier's horse, he struck in with the pm^suing 
French cavalry, but had the mishap to be taken prisoner. 
As soon as he was exchanged and had got back to England, 
the Protector knighted him at Hampton Court. See his 
eulogy in the Mercurius PoUfieux, Julij 15 /o 22. Drum- 
mond, who like Henry Jones had recently come over in Lord 
Fauconberg's train, was throughout the engagement Lock- 
hart's right-hand man; but a few days later he received a 
shot in the belly from the walls of Dimkirk. Allsop, the last 
of the heroes claiming mention here, acqu.ired distinction by 
a crushing assault which he led on a regiment bearing the 
name of " Charles Stuart's Own." The entii-e loss of the 
Cromwellians in killed and wounded, at the battle of the 
Dunes, according to Morgan, did not exceed forty killed and 
twenty Avoundecl. The French probably lost still less. 

At this point, a noticeable passage in Thmioe's communi- 
cations invites us to London, and carries us into the inner 
recesses of his Highness's council-chamber. " This mercy," 
Mr. Secretary %vi"ites to Henry Cromwell, " is the greater in 
respect that it was obtained the very day whilst his Highness 
and the Council were keeping a day of fasting and prayer to 
seek Cod for help in that siege. And tiiily I never was 
present at any such exercise where I saw a greater spirit of 



THE MARCH BACK. 213 

faith and prayer poured forth ; and it was a mere providence 
of Grod that ordered the fight and the seeking of the Lord to 
be upon one day." Thurloe to II. Cro)iia-eU, 18 June. — To 
which may be appropriately added a corresponding reflection 
by Greneral Lockhart himself. — '' I am encompassed with 
sorrows on account of my loss of so many of my friends ; yet 
when I consider what Grod hath done, and how much this 
day of small things may contribute to iha carrying on of a 
blessed and glorious work which may extend itself to all the 
corners of Europe, I confess I can but rejoice in the midst of 
my private afflictions, and must own that the lives of all the 
unwortliy instruments employed are not to be valued in the 
purchase of so rich a mercy." 

It seems proper, in conclusion, to take some brief notice of 
charge of cruelty and unnecessary carnage which was 
brought against the victors. In tliis battle, so Spanish pri- 
soners are reported to have said, " the French fought like 
Christians, the English like demons." It Avas the fm-ious 
onset at the Dunes which so distvu'bed the Spanish ideas of 
military decorum : but a charge of this natm-e coming from 
a nation so notorious for their outrages towards Englishmen, 
what is it worth ? Lockhart in justification of his subordi- 
nate's conduct, says to Thurloe, The published account of the 
battle which you have sent me " is true in the main ; only it 
doth us great wrong when it saith that we gave no quarter. 
The Major-general kept the regiments in a body, and would 
not suffer them to straggle either for pillage or for prisoners ; 
and did them [the prisoners] a service by it that merited a 
better character than that of cruolt}-." 

So writes Our Ambassador ; and on the basis of this 
worshipful authority we are now tlierefore at liberty to pic- 
tui'e the invincible phalanx of the Six Thousand, unstained 
in honom- and not much crippled in numbers, moving off 
from the well-fought field to rc-occupy the leaguer around 
Dunkirk. As the old song has it, (with variations,) 

They marched with trophies in their hands, 

The captured flags displaying ; 
And o'er the sands their music bands 
Triumphant tunes were playing. 



THE TAKING OF DUNKIEK. 

On reaching their camp, the English brigade found, as 
they fully expected, that during their absence the besieged 
garrison had sallied out and bm^nt or carried off all their 



214 CAMPAIGN IN FLANDERS. 

huts, tents, and other moveahles. It was now therefore all 
the more necessary to make short work of the affair and give 
the Spaniard his final quietus. The French under De Crequi 
on their side of the town promptly carried a demi-lune, and 
Lockhart made a lodgment on Fort Leon. The Marquis de 
Leyda being again summoned replied by a fusillade, but 
shortly after received his death- wound ; and the place siu*- 
rendered on the 25th of June 1658 after a siege of twenty 
two days ; the garrison eighteen hundred in number marching 
out next day. Lockhart entered with two of the English 
regiments, leaving the other four outside under the command 
of his invincible Major-general. There will be a parting 
salutation for Morgan before we have done ; but dismissing 
him for the present to keep the field with Turenne and co- 
operate in the fm'ther subjugation of Flanders, our more 
immediate attention is drawn to an interesting scene which 
is about to be enacted in the captured city. There, the King, 
the Cardinal, the Princes of France, the Ladies of the Court, 
and the Military Chiefs of two nations were assisting at some- 
thing more than a pageant when the surrender was made to 
an English Protectorate of the finest port on the North coast, 
— when Louis the fourteenth with his own hands placed the 
keys of Dunkirk in the hands of Sir William Lockhart, 26 
June, 1658. 

Even before this formality was enacted, "our Ambassador" 
had sat down and written two letters to England, one of which 
is the following. 



General Lochhart to Secretary TJmrloe. 

Dunkirk, June 15-25 1658. 
May it please your lordship, — I can add nothing at 
present to what I said in the morning, save that by the good- 
ness of God your servant is now master of Dunkirk. And 
indeed it is a much better place than I could have imagined. 
Blessed be God for this great mercy ; and the Lord continue 
his protection to his Highness, and His countenance to all 
his other undertakings ; and let his life be precious in His 
eyes, and his family prosper. So prayeth, my lord, yom- 
most humble servant, 

William Lockhart. 

So far as appearances went, there was no colour for sup- 
posing that any hesitation attended this act of surrender to 
England, at least on the part of the French King and his 



THE TAKING OF DUNKIRK. 215 

Minister. It is necessary to say this, because a strange story 
finds place in the Lockhart biography and elsewhere, to the 
effect that a secret resolution had been formed by the French 
powers to supplant the English and to keep Dunkirk in their 
own hands, — that Lockhart on being made aware of the plot, 
posted his troops on advantageous ground, and acting upon 
instructions brought in this brief interval from the Protector, 
took out his watch and threatened to pass over to the Span- 
iards unless the town were placed in his hands within an 
hour ; — that the Cardinal at first tauntingly asked him if he 
had slept well, but on perceiving that Sir William was in 
fierce earnest, at once yielded the point. It is hardly neces- 
sary to say that no corroboration of such a scene occiu-s in the 
correspondence of the hour, unless the following be so re- 
garded, — written on the da}'' of rendition, — " The generality 
of court and arms are even mad to see themselves pari with 
what they call un si boii morccau , or so delicate a bit ; yet he 
[the Cardinal] is still constant to his promises, and seems to 
be as glad in the general, notwithstanding our differences in 
little particulars, to give this place to his Highness as I can 
be to receive it. The King is also exceeding obliging and 
civil, and hath more true worth in him than I could have 
imagined." Thurloe VII. 174. 

Had the Cardinal ventured to outwit the English on this 
occasion, there is no denying that he would have greatly 
pleased the majority of the French nation. The " Libel," 
as he terms it, which he had placed in Lockhart's hand, as 
mentioned at page 197, supposing it identical with the pam- 
phlet published in an English form in 1659 under the title of 
" France no friend to England" shews clearly enough that the 
jealousies of the Catholic party were inflamed to an extra- 
ordinary degree at the prospect of the English regaining a 
stronghold south of the Channel, and must have expressed 
the feelings of many Frenchmen besides the Catholics. At 
present the Cardinal holds the malcontents in check. Their 
hour will shortly come, when he is dead, and when England 
has no longer any foreign mission to fulfil. Meanwhile, 
Lockhart has but too good reason still to write, — " The 
French do generally so envy our settlement here that Mon- 
sieur Turenne was not ashamed to argue this day [27 July] 
that two of our principal sluices here that are within our 
works belong to the government of Bergh." . . . "If 
the Cardinal did not moderate and bridle the humoiu'S of 
the French, I am confident we should have been by the 
ears e'er now." 

This natural and inevitable sentiment then, among the 



216 CAMrAIGN IM FLANDERS. 

Frencli, being admitted, it is no wonder that many writers 
slioiild have credited Mazarin with a will to play the traitor 
towards Cromwell had he possessed the requisite nerve. 
Among others, Mr. Charles Jenkinson (afterwards Earl oE 
Liverpool^ reviewing the Treaty, is manifestly of opinion 
that the Cardinal discovered when too late that the practical 
advantage lay with the Englisli ; and that in order to retrieve 
his position he hoped to raise a difficulty on an expression in 
the Clause which provided that the sea-ports should be left 
in the Protector's possession, but did not say that he should 
have possession. Mr. Jenkinson then adds, — " The Cardinal 
conceiving it would do" . . . . "ordered Marshal 
Tui'enne to get possession of Dunkirk and keep it, as justly 
supposing that town would be a more important conquest than 
any they should acquire besides. The Marshal would certainly 
have obeyed his orders had not Cromwell discovered it, and 
then both the reason and the result of this Treaty would have 
been very different. The story of the discovery is too well 
known to need relating here. It is sufficient for my purpose 
that Dunkirk was put into the hands of the English and that 
the French King never acquired the Imperial dignity nor 
conquered more of the interior part of Flanders than he 
might have done had not this Treaty been made." Collec- 
tion of Treaties, I. 97. 

[This expression " the Imperial dignity " points to Clause 
XIV, in which the English Protector had promised to use 
all possible means to secm"e the election of Louis as Emperor 
of the Romans, or at least to prevent the dignity falling to 
the house of Austria. Another stipulation was that Oliver 
. would lend a fleet of ships to act under the French Admiral's 
command in the Mediterranean ; — his policy plainly taking 
this form, — " I will rather lend you ships than that you 
should create a fleet of your own ; and if I may have the sea- 
ports of Flanders, your Majesty is quite welcome to the Im- 
perial purple, — if you can get it."] 

This reasoning of Mr. Jenkinson is designed to shew that, 
failing to win Dunkirk, the French would gain next to 
nothing by the Treaty with Cromwell, and that this was an 
ignominious result to which no party could possibly have con- 
sented. Whether the French nation were really losers or 
gainers by the Flanders campaign, quite independently of 
Dunkirk, we have yet to see. But even admitting that Crom- 
well's was the master-hand in the bargain and that the 
French Court discovered that they had made a fatal mistake, 
all we can say is, — never was ou.tward bearing more at 
variance with secret designs. This, it will be replied, may 



FRETSTCH EMBASSY TO ENGLAND. 21'?' 

very easily be accepted as part of the art diplomatic ; but 
what cannot be so easily accepted is the additional su^Dposi- 
tion that throughout the transaction Lockhart's private 
language in respect of the Cardinal is stamped with insin- 
cerity; for when the affair was all over, he could still write of 
him in the following strain. — " His Eminence hath a great 
and generous soul, both upon that account [the alliance with 
England] and the particular respect I am confident he hath 
to his Highness and family." 21 Juh/. Lockhart is evidently 
giving him credit for good faith. Would it be safe to hazard 
a second alternative, and say that Cromwell's ambassador 
was a much duller man than his master gave him credit 
for ? Certainly, no one has ever yet called his sagacity in 
question. 

lu carrying on the history, it will now be requisite to refer 
to r_ parallel part of the drama, about which there was no 
secrecy at all ; and perhaps we may be able, in passing along, 
to judge how far it can be reconciled with the above theory 
of plot and counterplot. 

Before the capture of Dunkii^k, and this is a point to be 
kept m mind, the Duke de Crequi had been withdrawn from 
ttie leaguer and sent on a complimentary mission to England. 
This embassy which took the form of a demonstration en 
revanche for Fauconberg's recent visit, was so organized as to 
express unusual comiesy ; being accompanied with all the 
additional pageantry which Grallic wit could devise, and con- 
ducted by one who was First Lord of the Bedchamber. With 
De Crequi, there also went over Monsieur Mancini the Car- 
dinal's nephew, the Chevalier Grammont, and several other 
noblemen. Mr. Ambassador Lockhart, fully sensible of the 
courtesy of the action and of the value which ought to be 
attached to it in England, prudently sent forward a note of 
warning, suggesting in what form the Cardinal's feelings 
might be most efficiently gratified in the treatment of his 
nephew. _ «; It will be expected," he says to Thitrloe, " that 
M. Mancini meet with some particular kindnesses, which may 
be done thus,— After the public audience is over, his High- 
ness may send a coach or two for him, and give him a private 
audience, whereat he may, according to his own goodness, 
give his Eminence [the Cardinal] those assui-ances of friend- 
ship he shall think fit. The Cardinal hath written asking for 
two frigates to transport them ; and I have desii'ed my lord 
Montague to give them that accommodation." 

The reception and entertainment of this French embassy 
fell as a matter of course jDrincipally on Lord Fauconberg, 
than whom none, we may well suppose, could execute it 



2l8 CAMPAIGN IN FLANDERS. 

better. From Grreenwich, wliere they were met by Sir Oliver 
Flemming master of the ceremonies and several otber lords 
and gentlemen, tbey were conveyed in state barges to the 
Tower, and tlience in bis Highness's coaches to Brook-house 
in Holborn, which formed their hotel for the ensuing six 
days. The interest of the affair was made to culminate in a 
grand dinner at Whitehall, when the Duke de Crequi, speaking 
in French, again went through the formality of placing in 
the hands of the English Protector the keys of the captured 
city, — accompanying the action with these words, " My 
master takes pleasui'e in parting with them to the greatest 
Captain on Earth." Such at least is the story told in the 
Lockhart biography ; and the thing is just possible, since 
news of the sm^ender reached London soon after De Crequi's 
landing ; but then we must suppose that to enable him to go 
through the scene of the keys, the identical instruments were 
sent on after him, which may admit of a doubt. 

There was still one more formality to be observed. French 
gallantry could not allow the principals to depart without 
audience being solicited of the ladies of the Protectoral house 
at Hampton Court. Cela va sans dire, yet as the Chevalier 
Grrammont was of the party, we would like to hear his account 
of the interview, — in default whereof, we turn to Lord Fau- 
conberg. 



Lord Fauconherg to Henry Cromwell Lord Deputy of 
Ireland, 

22 June 1658. 
My dear Lord ; — I have been truanting all this last week 
from the respects I ought to have paid your lordship. The 
giving entertainment to some Ministers sent from ihe French 
King to this Court with compliments, so wholly took up my 
time, even nights as well as days, that it was impossible to 
do aught else. The chiefest of those that came were the 
Duke de Crequi, the Cardinal's nephew Monsieur Mancini, 
and the Chevalier Grrammont. They had their first audience 
on Wednesday, and their last for taking leave on Saturday ; 
and were treated from the time of their arrival till their 
going, which was yesterday, with all magnificence possible at 
his Highness's charge. Dming their stay came another 
envoy from France to acquaint his Highness with the de- 
livery of Dunkirk into the English hands ; but withal, that 
the French were sat down before Winnoxberg, which I am 
confident is done on purpose to block us up, and by straitening 



S'auconberg's progress. 2l9 

tlie quarters of Dunkirk to hinder both contributions and our 
future making further progress into the country. Whether 
I hit right or no, in their scope, it is most sure they have done 
the thing. 

_ My lord, I now receive your lordship's, telling me of an 
indisposition you are under, which really gives me apprehen- 
sions for you inexpressible. The attendance I have been 
forced to give the Monsieui-s has brought me into no little 
disorder,— not only stopping a journey which my lady and I 
had intended this day Northward, but shutting me up in my 
bed, where I write all this to your lordship in so much pain 
that it compels me to beg your pardon and leave to tell you 
that 1 am— your lordship's most truly affectionate, faithful, 
and most perfectly obedient servant. 

Fauconberg. 

Having dispatched the above letter to brother Henry, Lord 
fauconberg m company with his fair wife the Lady Mary 
C^romweil proceeded to execute a sort of vice-regal " pro- 
gress thiwgh the north of England; the obvious design 
01 which was to produce among his aristocratic connexions in 
that district an exalted sense of the Protector's growing 
power thus uneqmvocally recognized by foreign courts. And 
the event fully answered his expectations ; for his public re- 
ception m Yorkshire was of the most flattering kind, a body 
o± more than a thousand horse comprizing the gentry and 
yeomanry of that county meeting him near the city of York 
besides the lord-mayor and aldermen of the place. We may 
be quite sure that his subsequent audiences and after-dinner 
speeches were occasions of unwonted gratulations among his 
county friends and neighbours ; for a man possessing the 
resources and the addi-ess of Lord Fauconberg would know 
thoroughly well how to improve the shining hour to the best 
advantage Much had he to tell them about the great Louis 
and the still greater Cardinal,— about Lockhart's diplomacy 
and Morgan s dashing chivalry. He had by heart the whole 
story ot Cromwell s veterans turning to flight a Spanish host 
far more numerous than themselves. Might he not be per- 
mitted to add without tearing a single leaf from the chaplet 
ot±5ritish valour, how De Crequi, the model of French 
noblesse, after routing the illustrious Cond^, had sailed across 
the narrow seas to lay the fruits of victory at the Protector's 
teet :' Above all, and this was the point where the Anglican 
heart was most sensitive, he could remind them that now at 
last the loss of Calais was condoned by the acquisition of a 
tar better port, and that the Protestantism of England would 



220 CAMPAIGN IN FLANDERS, 

hencefortli date its decrees from a citadel wrested from papal 
Spain. The personal share which he had himself borne in 
these transactions would give additional value to his nar- 
rative ; nor would the fact of his recent matrimonial alliance 
with the Protectoral house be lost upon his appreciative audi- 
ence. It was in fact the h'^iu' when the Cromwellian fortunes 
reached their culminating point. It was the horn' also which 
preceded their rapid declension, Fauconberg's progress took 
place in the early part of July 1658, — eight weeks later, and 
Oliver lay dead. 

But the hero had still some work before him. The messages 
which he sent back by the hand of De Crequi must now be 
set down. 



Oliver, Protector of the Commonwealth of England 8fc. 
To the most serene and pote)it jnince Louis King of France, 
our august confederate and friend. 

Your Majesty's prompt recognition of my homages, en- 
hanced as it is by the illustrious embassy which brought it, 
testifies both to myself and to all the people of England your 
singular benignity and generosity of mind, as also your 
favourable regard for my honour and dignity. In their name 
and for myself I retm-n the thanks so justly due. Touching 
the victory which God gave to oui' imited forces [the battle 
of the Dunes] I rejoice with your Majesty. To me it is es- 
pecially gratifying that in that battle the English soldiers were 
wanting neither i:^. (heir co-operation with youi'S, nor to the 
military renown of their ancestors, nor to their native valour. 
As to Dunkirk, which your Majesty declared was near sur- 
render, it is a fuiiher pleasure to know that it has so quickly 
yielded. I hope indeed that one town may not be permitted 
to condone the Spaniard's two-fold perjury, but that your 
Majesty may with equal speed be enabled to report the cap- 
ture of another, Yom^ engagements in my own behalf, 
resting as they do on the word of an excellent King and con- 
firmed by your illustrious Envoy the Duke de Crequi, I 
mistrust not. May the great God prosper your Majesty and 
the affairs of France both in peace and in war." Westminster 
June, 1658. (Milton) 

To the Cardinal. 

Most eminent i,ord. While thanking your most serene 
King for the splendid legation through whom he has con- 



Oliver's letters. 221 

veyed to me his congratulations on account of the recent 
victory, I were ungrateful did I not also discharge the thanks 
due to your Eminency, whose good affection and scrupulous 
solicitude for my honour had caused to be associated with 
that embassy the person of your worthy and accomplished 
nephew, — declaring moreover, tliat had another relative 
existed nearer and dearer to you, such would have been se- 
lected in preference. The reason which you add is one which, 
from a person of your judgment, I accept as no faint praise, 
— your desire, namely, that those nearest to you in blood 
should emulate you in honouring me. Certainly, I am not 
unwilling that in the inferior province of civility candour and 
friendship towards my person they may follow such an 
example, Avhile of worth and prudence in a loftier sense they 
are able to gather lessons from your p^riblic career, — learning 
thence how to govern kingdoms and to deck with lustre the 
affairs of state. Which, that your Eminence may long an 
prosperously administer, to the good of France and the whole 
Christian republic, I promise that my wishes shall not be 
wanting. Yom^ Excellency's most ardent friend [sfudiosis- 
sinnis'] 

Oliver P. 

But Oliver could not forbear, a few days later, trans- 
mitting one more expression of cordiality towards the French 
court. — " That Dunkirk," says he, "had surrendered to your 
Majesty, and that it was by yom- orders immediately placed 
in our hands, we had already heard ; but with what a willing 
and glad mind your Majesty did it to testify your good will 
towards me, is especially declared by your royal letter, and 
confirmed by the nobleman, in whom, from the tenom^ of that 
letter, I have the utmost confidence, the Master in ordinary 
of yom- palace. Added to which, though it needed no further 
ratification, our Ambassador writes to the same effect, attri- 
buting every thing to yom- unfaltering friendship. Yom- 
Majesty may be assured that on om- part an honom^able re- 
ciprocity shall continue as heretofore to give stability to the 
compact existing between us. I rejoice in yom- Majesty's 
successes, and in the approaching captm-e of Bergh. May 
the Almighty grant us many similar occasions of mutual 
felicitations." 

From the final letter to the Cardinal one sentence may 
suffice. — " With what faith, and expression of the highest 
good will, all has been performed by you, although yom* 
Eminency's own assm-ance fully satisfied me ; yet that 
nothing might be wanting, our Ambassador's personal narra- 



222 CAMPAIGN IN FLANDERS. 

tive of the facts has stated whatever might either serve for 
my information or answer your opinion of him." 

Concerning which two last letters, which Mr. Masson re- 
cords in his Life of 3Iilton, but which are not found in the 
printed collections of Milton's Letters, nor in Phillips, nor in 
the Latin originals published at Leipsic and Frankfort in 
1690 by Caspar Meyer, a doubt lias been raised whether they 
were ever sent at all. (though Milton may have kept copies 
of them.) Those who hold to the belief of the Cardinal's 
secret design to retain Dunkirk, would probably suggest that 
the suppression of these two letters, breathing as they do such 
trust in Gallic faith, is to be accounted for by the plot having 
leaked out at last, though not, it may be, quite so soon as the 
popular tale represents. 

Be this as it may. The acquisition of Dunkirk, which had 
long trembled in the balance, was at last an accomplished 
fact. With this accomplished fact Oliver was for the present 
satisfied. The less said about the past, the better. He may 
have had his suspicions, even though Lockhart might not ; 
but a good understanding must still be maintained with the 
French court, for there are many nice questions yet to be ad- 
justed. To ensure and consolidate the new possession will 
severely tax the resources of the Protectoral government ; 
while France as well as Spain has now to be kept 
at bay. 

" II n'est pas facile," says Belidor, " d'exprimer la joie 
qu'eut Cromwell de la conquete de cette place, et de se voir 
delivr^ des covirses des Dunkerquois, qui avoient pris depuis 
cette guerre deux cents cinquante vaisseaux aux Anglois." 
Architecture HydrauUque, I. 16. 

Independently of the benefit both actual and prospective 
thus rendered to English commerce, the whole affair was 
eminently calculated to re-awaken the enthusiasm which the 
ppell of Cromwell's military successes had kindled in former 
days ; for though the Flanders campaign was executed by 
deputy, it was rightly felt to be animated by his spirit. On 
one of those deputy-champions it is manifest that at this 
junctm-e some special marks of favom* were bestowed. Wit- 
ness the following effusive acknowledgment from 



Lockhart to the Protector, 

May it please yotjr most serene highness, — I dare 
not give Mr. Fen wick leave to return to your Highness's 
service without prostrating myself at your Highness's feet. 



mokgan's last march. 223 

and making my humble acknowledgments of my own iin- 
worthiness of the daily favours I receive from your Highness. 
If I could serve your Highness with as active a spirit as I do 
with a zealous one, your Highness's affairs here would be in 
a better posture than as yet they are. Though, I thank God 
for it, things begin to fall into better order than I durst pro- 
mise at first ; and every day some progress is made towards 
such a settlement as, I hope, when I shall be able to give 
your Highness an account of the whole, I shall not need to 
be much ashamed of it." 

Nothing indeed could be more creditable than the new 
Governor's method of reducing into order and shape the com- 
plex interests of the little empire which he was now called to 
dominate. A full narrative of the details of his government 
would overflow all reasonable limits ; and even their summary 
review must be delayed till we have first briefly followed the 
march of Major-general Morgan through another portion of 
Spanish Flanders, and dismissed that impetuous gentleman 
from the service of the Commonwealth. Our field of vision 
may then be confined to Dunkirk alone till the end of the 
chapter. 



MORGAN'S FURTHER ACTION. 

Left in command of four of the English regiments, our 
doughty Major-general, in combination with Turenne's army, 
swept through the country south and east of Dunkirk literally 
with a conqueror's march. Bergh [or Winnoxberg] fell in 
five days. Furnes, Menin, Oudenarde, and Ypres followed 
the example, — all of them being "towns of strength." He 
tells us, and apparently with perfect truth, that on the suc- 
cessive investment of each place, " as soon as the Redcoats 
came near the counterscarp, there was nothing but a capitu- 
lation, and a surrender presently." Ypres, where the Prince 
de Ligny had cast himself in with 6,500 men, was expected 
to give them more trouble ; for the beaten Spanish army 
under Don John, having rallied their numbers to 15,000, 
were again advancing to break up the leaguer. On receipt 
of this intelligence, Turenne, instead of calling a council of 
war as he had before done previous to the battle of the Dunes, 
sends at once for the Major-general, turns all the loitering 
French officers out of his pavilion, locks the door, and asks 
for his advice. Says Morgan, " a desperate disease requires 
a desperate remedy. We must abandon our approaches, and 
put an end to the suspence by attempting tho counterscarp at 



224 CAMPAIGN IN I'LANDERS. 

once, in the way of assault." Here Marshal Turenne joined 
his hands, looked towards heaven, and said, — " Did ever my 
master the King of France or the King of Spain attempt a 
counterscarp by assault when there were three half -moons 
covered with cannon besides the ramparts of the town all 
playing upon it point-blank ? What think you will my 
master say to my exposing his army to such a hazard ?" And 
rising up, he fell into a passion, stamping with his feet, shak- 
ing his locks, and grinning with his teeth. " Major Morgan," 
says he, " you have made me mad." But cooling down after 
awhile, he proposed that the Major should stop and dine with 
him. — " I must beg yom' Excellency's pardon," says Morgan, 
" but I have appointed some of my officers to eat a piece of 
beef at my own tent to day." — " Well then, meet me at two 
o'clock at the opening of our approaches, and we will take a 
view of the counterscarp." To this the Major assented ; but 
knowing that the group of noblemen, about a hundred in 
number, who usually attended the Marshal's- movements, 
would draw the enemy's fire by the display of then- feathers 
and ribbons, he begged his Excellency to leave his train 
behind him. " I will bring only two or three lieutenants," 
said Tm-enne. 

In effect, he brought eleven, and then addressed them thus, 
— " I know not what to say to you ; but here is Major- 
general Morgan, who has put me out of my wits by pro- 
jDOsing that I should attempt yonder counterscarp upon an 
assault. What say you ?" No one made reply but Count 
Schomberg. "If Mr. Morgan," said he, "has i)rop33ed 
such a thing, it is because he deems it feasible, and because 
he knows what good fighting men he has." This closed the 
discussion, and nothing remained but to put the daring scheme 
into execution. Morgan as the personal leader resolved to 
conduct it immediately after night-fall, and the details were 
sm^endered into his hands. About two thousand, including 
pioneers, was the number told off. While a body of six 
hundi^ed English carrying fascines on the tops of their 
muskets and pikes, should pass to the attack between two un- 
finished approaches, two bodies of French who lay in those 
two approaches were instructed to leap out and join in the 
rush forward. The plan had the full approval of Turenne. 
The occupants of the approaches, it was agreed, would lie 
quiet till twenty of the French firelocks should leap upon 
"the point," and crying " Sa sa, Vive le Roi do France,'' 
give the signal for all to fall on together. Morgan, who 
wanted not their " Sa sa,'' begged they would preserve a 
total silence, unless they wished to draw the enemy's fire upon 



MOKGAN S LAST MARCH. 225 

them all, and allow Mm to lead the attack. When the ap- 
pointed hour arrived, the English went at it in their accustomed 
style. Silently and swiftly they passed between the two ap- 
proaches,— not a Frenchman meanwhile moving out on either 
side to help them,— but as it was useless to wait for them, the 
pioneers on reaching their work, slipped their fascines, tore 
down a portion of the stockadoes, and followed by Morgan 
and all his men, leaped pell-mell into the counterscarp amono- 
the enemy, and speedily cleared it. Then they went at tw? 
of the half-moons, scaled their summits in a trice, threw many 
oi their defenders into the moat, and turned the guns on the 
town. And vrhere had their French allies been all this while ? 
if we are to credit the Major-general, they all lay secm^e in 
their trenches till the enemy was fairly mastered; when, dis- 
covering what progress the English had made, they felt com- 
13elled for very shame to make a demonstration on the third 
half-moon,— and were repulsed. "We must go to their 
assistance," cried Morgan, " That half-moon, unless taken, 
will sorely gall us at the return of day-light." His troops 
made answer, " Shall we fall on in order, or Happy go 
lucky?" " Happy go lucky," was the Major- general's reply; 
and the thing being speedily done, he rallied his men, and 
lodged them for the night in comparative secm-ity on the 
counterscarp. 

And now the Marshal himself v/as seen seramblino- over 
the ditches in search of the English leader,' to whom he could 
not forbear apologising for the backwardness of his own men 
m the hour of peril. "Indeed," writes Morgan in after years 
'they did just nothing." "But now," said the Marshal,' 
you will repair to my approaches and refresh yourself."—" I 
beg your Excellency's pardon, but 1 shall not stir from my 
post till I hear the enemy's drum beat a parley or see a white 
hag hanging over the wall." The Marshal smiled,—" Mr 
Morgan we shall not be at that pass for six days yet,"— and 
going back to his quarters, he dispatched for the Major's en- 
comvagemeut three or four dozen bottles of rare wine with 
several dishes of cold meats and sweetmeats. Thus the nio-ht 
was pa-sed. Only two hours after sun-rise tlie weary watchers 
on the counterscarp had the satisfaction of hearing a dimn 
beat a parley and of seeing a white flag fluttering over the 
town-wall. 

Here endelh the story of the march through Flanders 
Eight days later, a highly complimentary message from the 
-trench court reached the Major-general. The Kino- and 
Cardinal hoped to see him in Paris when the time for winter- 
quarters arrived, there to present him witli a cupboard of 

Q 



226 CAMPAIGN IN FLANDERS. 

plate in recognition of his unparalleled bravery. Let the 
Major-general himself record the Finale; — "Major-general 
Morgan, instead of going for his clipboard of plate, went for 
England ; and his Majesty of France had never the kindness 
to send him his cupboard of plate ; so that this is the reward 
that Major-general Morgan hath had from the French King 
for all his service in France and Flanders." 

[The Major forgets to mention a present of " 200 Lewises" 
which he received from the Cardinal, — as stated in a letter 
by Lockhart of 6 July, Thurloe VII, 207 ; — besides the 
"promise of the like sum yearly in addition to his pay," — 
contingent of course on his remaining in the French service.] 

"Killed at the storming of Ypres. One captain, one 
sergeant, eight private soldiers. About twenty-five officers, 
of thirty-five ; and about six soldiers slightly wounded after 
they were lodged upon the counterscarp. Sir Thomas Mor- 
gan himself slightly hurt by a shot in the calf of his leg." 

A certain impetuous but diminutive hero known as Major 
Dowett, who fought in the first Civil "War against King 
Charles, was described in one of the newspapers of the hour 
as " a low man but of tall resolution." The same might be 
said of Thomas Morgan the hero of the Flanders campaign. 
The story goes that when, as a youth, he first sought his for- 
tunes in the Low Countries, (this was before the breaking 
out of hostilities at home,) he carried over a letter of re- 
commendation to some English officer there serving ; but 
overhearing the said officer soliloquizing thus, — " What, has 
my cousin recommended a rattoon to me ?" his Welsh blood 
took fire at the term rattoon, and he forthwith transferred his 
services to a Saxon chief. Returning home to mingle in our 
own Civil Wars, he served Cromwell so well in Scotland and 
Ireland, that his commission to succeed to the command of 
the troops at Mardyke on Reynolds' death could have sm*- 
prized no one. During that campaign we are told that on 
some occasion, shortly after the Dunes affair. Marshal Tiirenne 
and another eminent person, supposed to be Mazarin himself, 
having heard much of his prowess, and picturing to them- 
selves a man of Achillean statiu-e, paid a visit to his tem- 
porary abode which consisted of a hut formed of turf ; where 
they were surprized and amused to recognize in the conqi • : or 
of the Spanish Don a little man not many degrees above a 
dwarf, sitting with his fellow soldiers, smoking a three-inch 
tobacco pipe, and wearing on his head a green hat-case. This 
account, which rests on the authority of Sir John Lenthall as 
reported by Aubrey, if true, can have reference only to the 
Cardinal ; since to Turenne himself the person of Morgan 



MORGAN AT JERSEY. 227 

must have been familiar enough. His voice, it is added, was 
effeminate and petulant, unfitted to sustain the threat which 
he was perpetually launching at his saucy followers, — ■" Sirrah, 
I'll cleave your skull." He could speak in English, French, 
Welsh, High Dutch, and Low Dutch, but imperfectly in all. 
Eventually " he seated himself at Chewston in Herefordshire, 
and died about the year 1679." Such is Aubrey's summary, 
but something more must be added, 

A mere soldier of fortune, Morgan attached himself to hia 
old associate George Monk when that general was manoeuv- 
ring for the restoration of royalism ; and being at once 
nominated his general of horse, was left in tha]; command in 
Scotland when Monk moved southward. The Stuart policy 
of bestowing favours on antient foes rather than on impover- 
ished adherents procured for Morgan a baronetcy and the 
governorship of Jersey, where his knowledge of fortification 
was utilized to the restoration of Elizabeth- Castle. A pane- 
gyrist describes him as seated whole day^ on a gun-carriage, 
superintending and m^giug his pioneers in the completion of 
theii' work ; but he omits the three-inch pipe, a feature with- 
out which, we are quite sure the portraiture lacks complete- 
ness. Royalist though he had now become, and consequently 
consenting to the oblivion which courtiers were casting over 
the late Kebellion, he was by no means satisfied that the 
French should forgot it also ; and he therefore took care to 
leave on record his own personal testimony to the fact that 
the laurels won in Flanders and subsequently monopolized 
by Turenne, would never have been his but for the uncalcu- 
lating devotion of the Six Thousand Cromwellians. He 
married De la Riviere the daughter and heiress of Richard 
Cholmondley of Brame-hall in Yorkshire ; and dying at the 
age of seventy three, was succeeded by his son Sir John 
Morgan of Kinnersley Castle, M.P. for Hereford, temp. 
Charles II. The title became extinct in 1767. See Falle's 
History of Jersey, and Burke's Extinct and dormant 
baronetcies. 

Many under-sized captains besides Morgan have commanded 
the devotion of their followers ; — witness Count Mansfeldt 
and Prince Eugene. Of the latter we are told that his 
shrunken form, half concealed beneath an enormous peruke, 
and mounted on a tall horse, bore a most ludicrous appear- 
ance ; yet he was one of the greatest generals of his time, 
and was idolized by his soldiers whom he ever led to victory.- 
If Morgan the Buccaneer shared his brother's squeaky voice 
and unheroic exterior, he would furnish another example. — 
This latter worthy, it may here be stated in conclusion, was 



228 CAMPAIGN IN FLANDERS. 

also dubbed a knigbt, became Sir Henry Morgan, and was 
made Governor of Jamaica. Now we hasten back to Dunkirk. 

The Lihcl on Mazarin. 

Mazarin's policy, apparently so favourable to England, was 
not carried into execution without the most vehement ex- 
postulation from the Catholic party. He placed, it will be 
remembered, in Lockhart's hands on one occasion, see page 
197, what they agreed to term a most wicked libel. Corres- 
spondence in date and matter suggests that it is the same 
pamphlet which was published in an English form next year 
under the title of ^''France no friend to England.^'' But 
whether identical or not, the position taken by the writer 
was no doubt one and the same. The original Erench work 
was issued during the winter of 1657, when the English were 
already entrenched at Mardyke, but were not yet in possession 
of Dunkii'k ; and was entitled, 

A mod Jiujnhk and imporfcoit remonstrance to the King of 
France, ujjon the surrendering of the maritime ports of Flanders 
into the hands of the English. Wherein much of the private 
transactions between Cardinal Mazarin and the late Frotector 
Oliver arc discovered, 

SiKE. — "We bring before your Majesty the resentments of 
all Erance, or rather those of Catholic Europe, Avhich cry to 
the most Christian King for justice upon one of the most in- 
supportable and outrageous injuries that haply the Church 
ever yet sustained since its nativity upon earth. Is it possible 
that in the reign of Louis XIV. the altars which his glorious 
predecessors cemented with their blood in Palestine should be 
overthrown ujoon the frontiers of Erance ? Is it possible that 
his victorious arms should be engaged in the extermination of 
the sacraments which sanctify those altars ? And is it 
credible that the sacrifice which took place in England when 
the blood of Henry the Creat [in the person of King Charles] 
was immolated to the fury of a parricide, should be crowned 
by driving his son out of Erance ? nay, crowned by the pro- 
fanation of the blood of Jesus Christ itself ? 

Pardon, great Sire, the importunity which makes this ap- 
peal. The delicate tenderness which we feel towards every 
thing which carries the sacred name of yoiu" Majesty will 
hardly justify to posterity the silence we have hitherto ob- 
served ; though well aware that the Hatterers around you will 
endeavour to neutralize the most faithful remonstrances by 



THE LIBEI, ON MAZARIN. 229 

designating tliem libels and pamphlets. All Christendom 
admires your virtues, and doubts not that in the late Treaty 
your good inclinations were misdirected by arguments based 
on the alleged necessities of yom- state, and your own good 
eyesight blinded by the traitorous artifices of your ministers. 
But has yom- Majesty ever been informed of the miserable 
estate of the Queen of England your aunt, left in mendicity 
to gratify the assassin of her royal spouse ? We will not 
believe that the blood of the great Henry flowing in your 
veins thus willingly abandoned his daughter and her off- 
spring, and consented to treat as an alien the young King of 
England your cousin-german. Such treatment of them were 
nothing less than the phlebotomy of your own blood, drawn 
by a fortunate politician to sacrifice to his own panic terror 
of an usurper. But can the monarch of France, prince of the 
most warlike and generous nation in the universe, thus debase 
his crown to the most capricious idol that ever yet curried 
favom' with fortune ? 

The false Protector of England thinks to consecrate his 
detestable tyranny by elevating his fantastical government 
over the august crown of the lilies,— and France obeys his 
mandates, — France, whose flag has hitherto triumphed over 
all others, making the Saracens tremble, and defying Spain 
even when Francis I. was in captivity, now droops that 
glorious flag to any piratical ship-master in the service of 
your uncle's murderer. Not content with homages which, 
since the foundation of our monarchy have been accorded to 
none but himself, he advances more solid claims, which the 
weakness of your minister renders easy to him. He en- 
croaches upon New 1 ranee, and he detracts from yom- an- 
cestral trophies by demanding a renunciation of that inviolable 
custom which forced the English to leave their cannons, as an 
eternal monument of their defeat, in the mouth of the river 
of Bordeaux, It is. Sire, as if yom^ minister had conspired 
with England to avenge the disgraces of her Bedfords and 
Talbots, when he forced you to relinquish your personal pre- 
rogatives, and when he required that Treaties, by which you 
gain nothing, where you lose much, and where you hazard 
all, shoidd be stamped with the august name of " Brother." 
And this appellation you are giving to a soldier who hath no 
other throne than a scaffold upon which he massacred the 
kinsman of Henry the Grreat. 

Diflicult will it be for futm-e ages to credit such conduct ; 
and while om- own is indignant that your Majesty should be 
served by such blind and faithless ministers, no one condemns 
you. Solomon himself was inveigled by flatterers, but Solo- 



230 CAMPAIGN IN FLANDERS. 

mon promptly adds, tliat God illuminates the hearts of 
princes in the hour of their strongest temptation. Now, the 
actual dilemma in which yom^ Majesty is placed offers the 
strongest temptation which could possibly arise to test the 
piety of a Christian King. "We doubt not you shed tears of 
blood when resigning the ports of Flanders to become the 
pledge of heresy in one of the most Catholic countries in the 
world, — established too on this side of the sea by the most 
redoubtable and most antient enemy of our crown. The 
very proposition of so fatal a blow to the holy Catholic faith 
must have made you shake and tremble with fear and anger. 
And when you represented to yourself her altar demolished, 
her temples profaned, her mysteries violated, without doubt 
the blood of St. Louis bestirred itself within your entrails at 
the sight of such a spectacle. — But the question now in hand, 
one which we must sound to the bottom, is whether it be 
necessary or not, — whether compliance with England be not as 
useless to your service as it is dishonourable to your crown. — 

"We admit that a rupture between England and Spain is 
advantageous to France, but not when pm-chased at the price 
of a public scandal and the loss of yom- antient allies. The 
Protector of England has now become Protector of the 
Huguenots of France, whose unbridled licentiousness has 
prompted them to build more than forty temples since the 
death of the late King your father of sacred memory, \_But 
though a friend to the Huguenots, this does not make him a 
friend to France, for'] if all the forces of Europe were leagued 
'against the Lilies, vainly might wo look to England for 
succom\ 

Can your Majesty be ignorant of the difference between 
England a republic and England a monarchy ? Great Bri- 
tain under a King may be a very considerable country in 
Europe ; but under a Senate assuming the republican form, 
it becomes formidable to all the Earth. It follows, that no 
prince^in Christ endon will join with your interest so long as 
you contribute to the establishment of a republic which from 
its very buih hath embraced both the one and the other 
hemisphere, and, as it were, in bravm-a, defieth the universe. 

If what is actually passing at this moment on the confines 
of France were portrayed on canvas, the picture would be 
accepted rather as the capricious fancy of a painter who re- 
presents his actors flashing their swords in masquerade. Let 
the vast plains of Dunkirk on the one side be viewed covered 
with battalions : on the other side, let the little territory of 
Mardyke be seen occupied by fourteen or fifteen hundred 
men, mere spectators, with their hands hanging loose by their 



THE LIBEL ON MAZARIN. 231 

sides. Miglit not tliese latter be taken to represent the 
senators of old Rome watching an army of gladiators and 
slaves ? Would any one imagine the nmnerous troops on the 
other side, who are seen flying up and down the Dunes of 
Flanders, to be composed of free-born men cheerfully sacri- 
ficing their lives and fortunes in the service of the two or 
three thousand lackeys and gallows-birds which England has 
sent over ? Daily too are they pushing forward the tragic 
spectacle with which the greedy eyes of Cromwell are to be 
fed in the approaching campaign. The false prophet himself, 
se . ,ed on the summit of the Tower of London, meanwhile 
watches the effusion of blood which, whether French or 
Spanish, is alike poured out in sacrifice to his illusions. 

What is still more to be deplored is that we are subjecting 
our posterity to a tyrant's will by putting into his hands 
places of such vast consideration — so considerable are they, 
Sii'e, that France could not endui-e that they should belong 
to Spain, though you fear not the fleets of Spain. But your 
minister is pleased to deliver them unto England who is 
abeady mistress of all the seas, and who regards them only 
as the stepping stones by which to ascend the bastions of 
Calais. The Protector who makes the flag of France humble 
itself before him, which neither the Edwards nor the Henries 
could ever do, will not contentedly behold those places re- 
maining in the hands of the French, which the aforesaid 
Kings of England enjoyed. His ambitious thoughts will 
ferry liim over our seas and pictm'e to his fancy G-uienne in 
revolt and Normandy reduced to his rule. Cod grant. Sire, 
that when this Demon of ambition is once established on the 
Continent by your arms and Avith the connivance or at least 
the ignorance of your minister, who cloth even idolatrize him, 
he may not direct all his forces against France herself, which 
without contradiction is the object most natural and obvious 
to his desires. He knoweth but too well that a minister who 
is capable of placing in his hands that which all the force of 
his arms could never have won, is a minister which nature 
doth not produce at all times and in all ages. Thus he will 
make use of that imbecility to conquer our country which 
serves him now to deceive it. Considerations such as these 
will re-kindle his own natm-al genius which induced him for 
four years to make war upon us with insupportable pu-acies, 
and still prompts him, unchecked by a Treaty, to treat us 
more like slaves than allies. Who could ever have believed 
that after twenty seven years of open war, France should be 
so unhappy as to put the general peace into the hands of one 
who of all men hath the truest interest to break it ? 



232 CAMPAIGN IN FLANDERS. 

It is here, Sire, that we find our hearts stirred to discover 
lo your Majesty the grand mystery of iniquity, drawn from 
the bottom of Hell, the mystery whereof the cruel demon of 
war hath made Cromwell depositary, and another man, too, 
Sire, whom the resjiect we owe to yoiu- Majesty hardly per- 
mits us to name. [The writer then makes a more personal 
attack on Mazarin, shewing what lessons he had learnt in the 
schools of Machiavel and llichelieu, how he had violated the 
Treaty of Munster, and fomented for mere love of discord 
the mal-alliances then desolating Em-ope. And he concludes 
by setting forth the awkward alternative which the present 
situation of affairs offered to all church-loving Frenchmen.] 
— In how sad a condition, Sire, doth a French catholic find 
himself in the churches ! At the foot of the altar, must he 
implore the blessing of Ileaven on the armies of Spain, 3'our 
Majesty's declared enemies ; or must he invoke its favours on 
the 'arms of France which a horrid and terrible blindness 
employs for the establishment of heresy ? We feel in our 
hearts a combat of religion against the State, and of the 
State against itself. Shall we lun next summer to the siege 
of Dunkirk, then to that of Ostend, and so to Nieuport, to 
follow our natural inclination to obey our prince ; or shall we 
stay at home and pray for protection on those places, which, 
so long as they are in Spanish hands, at least furnish your 
minister with the means of feeding Cromwell's ambition for 
another 3^ear, without surrendering to him Calais and Bou- 
logne ? &c. (S:c. 

Of the original essay, which occupies twenty four pages of 
the old quarto, the above is but an abridgement, involving of 
necessity a slight re-adjustment of a few passages to make 
the argument sequential. Its spirit will enable us fully to 
estimate the antagonistic elements which environed Lockhart 
in his new governmental department. 



LOCKHART IN POSSESSION. 

The follovv-ing lamentation on the fate of Dunkirk is from 
a contemporay miinuecriiit in the British Museum library. 
Add. MSS. Fr. 16912 foL 245. 

Bunherque 1658. 

Je suis le champ fameux des plus sanglans combats. 

On m attaque par met, on m'attaque par terre ; 

Et tons les elements me livrcnt une guerre, 
Dont les puissants efforts me doivent mettre a bas. 



LOCKHART IN POSSESSION. 233 

Pour augmenter mcs maux, tout est d'intelligence, 
Au lieu de me donner iiue prompte assistance. 
La Hollande pour moi n'ose avoir de desseins ; 
L' Espagne me defend, et I'Espagne m'opprime. 
Et la France, O malheur, veut de ses propres mains, 
M'immoler a I'Anglois sans profiter du crime. 

Whicli may be thus Englished. 

The field renowned of many a bloody fight, 

I've been attacked by land, attacked by sea ; 
The very elements make wai' on me. 

And league with man to desolate me quite. 

Thus all, to swell my sorrows, seem agreed ; 

For, rather than accord me timely aid, 

Holland to speak her mind is sore afraid. 

Spain fights for me, but Spain oppresses too ; 

And gallant France consents, — can it be true ? 

Though gaining nothing by the wanton deed. 

To sacrifice me to Britannia's greed. 

Ill the capitulation of Dunkirk it was promised to the Sieur 
de Bassecourt, governor of the town, that none of the relics 
and miraculous images of the glorious Virgin and other 
saints, nor the ornaments or bells of the chui'ches, convents, 
cloisters, or other public places, should be removed or dis- 
turbed. As this tenderness towards the people's faith was 
only in accordance with the Treaty between Oliver and Louis, 
Sir William Lockhart had no hesitation in ratifying Turenne's 
promise by the following instrument drawn up in the camp 
at Mardyke. 

" We, William Lockhart, knight, member of the privy 
council of Scotland for the most serene and potent Lord Pro- 
tector of England Scotland and Ireland, ambassador to the 
most Christain King Louis XIV, make Iniown that by virtue 
of the commission granted unto us by his Highness, the town 
of Dunkirk with all its forts was this day, immediately after 
its surrender, put into oru' hands by order of the most 
Christian King, with all the artillerj^, ammunition, and pro- 
visions, — We promise his royal and most Christian Majesty 
that the Catholic religion with all its appendages shall be so 
sacredly and inviolably preserved in the said town of Dun- 
kirk, so long as it continues under our dominion, that it shall 
receive no damage from us; — And that the ecclesiastics, 
regular and others, provided they make no attempt against 
the government to which they have submitted, shall securely 
enjoy their revenues and the possession of their churches; 
none of which shall be applied to the use of the Protestant 



234 



CAMPAIGN IN FLANDERS. 



religion. Nor shall any kind of alteration or innovation be 
introduced into the Catholic religion for any reason, colours, 
or pretext whatever ; but it shall always continue in the same 
state as now. Moreover we engage our faith to deliver in a 
month's time into the hands of his most Christian Majesty a 
declaration of the like tenom- and force signed by his High- 
ness, in which also the conditions now granted to the inhabi- 
tants, the 24th of this present month, shall be confirmed by 
his Highness. In witness whereof we sign these presents at 
the Fort of Mardyke this 25th day of June [new style] 
1658, William Lockhart. 

and sealed with his arms. 

The best method of exhibiting the midtifarious character 
of Lockhart's new cares and laboui's will be to recite a series 
of miscellaneous passages from his letters to the home govern- 
ment, extending over several weeks. 

On 24 June he announces that on the morrow his forces 
would be in possession of the town ; but, says he, " I have 
neither money nor provisions for them, and I carry them to a 
place where little or nothing is left. That which troubles me 
most is that I am forced to buy the very palisadoes of the 
Fort-royal ; otherwise the French, notwithstanding any order 
which the King or Cardinal may give, would pull them out, 
and not only burn them but pull down the earthen works in 
taking them out. I must also presently employ om- soldiers 
in repairing the breaches and in taking up the bridges of 
communication, and put them upon a hundred several kinds 
of work which cannot be done without money. I must also 
pay the cannoniers of the army for the bells of the town, 
which is their indisputable due at all rendition of places. I 
have a great many disputes with the Cardinal about several 
things. I have agreed he shall have all the cannons in the 
town that have the arms of France upon them. But some 
other things concerning shipping in the harbour, and the 
quartering of the French guards, and lodging the chief 
officers of the army, are yet in controversy. 

I shall have of cannon here, when the French have taken 
away their sixteenth, and the enemy their two, which they 
had by capitulation, about 130 pieces, whereof 63 are brass 
and 67 iron, but most of them small guns. It will not be 
necessary that your lordship send any shovels, spades, or 
pickaxes, because I gather all I can about the works ; and I 
have ordered the burghers to bring in what they gathered 
when the town was under capitulation, They have already 
swelled to a great bulk, and I believe, when all is got in, will 



LOCKHART GOVERNOR OF DUNKIRK. 235 

amount to six or seven thousand, which is a good stock if well 
managed. I desire that no great shot be sent till I see what 
can be got together of them also. The French have left many 
in their quarters scattered, and I give the soldiers for every 
ball of 29 lb, sixpence ; and of 121b or thereabout, a groat. 
. My lord, there is an old frigate in the harbour, she 
hath neither rope nor yard. Particular persons claim her, 
and the French claim her, and I claim her upon my lord Pro- 
tector's accou.nt." 

*' The town hath suffered no damage either by the French 
or the English. The French had it not above four hom-s in 
their possession, during which time I had almost all the 
King's and the Cardinal's guards divided into the several 
streets to prevent pillaging ; and when his Highness' s forces 
marched in, I drew up my own regiment in the market-place 
and sent off guards to so many quarters of the town as that 
all disorders were prevented. I have much ado to keej) our 
soldiers out of the churches and from committing some little 
abuses ; but the trouble of that will be at an end in a few 
days. The novelty of the thing will be over, and their 

curiosity satisfied." " The ecclesiastics here 

do find so little of that ill treatment from us which the 
Spaniards threatened them with, that they pretend they are 
well satisfied with us, and say we use them better than either 
the Spanish or the French did, which probably is true. But 
all that's done for them is like washing of the black-moor. 
Their hearts cannot be gained." ..." The citizens 
would make us believe that they have long wished to be under 
his Highness's government, provided the liberty of their 
religion might have been secm-ed. I make it my interest to 
persuade them I believe all their fair professions, and my 
business to watch over them as enemies in om* bosom. I 
have propounded to them [the sending of] a Deputation to 
his Highness, Avhich they have resolved to do, so soon as 
things here are a little settled." 

" All the considerable towns in Flanders are levying forces 
for their own defence ; and some here who pretend to know 
much of the intentions of the Flemings, flatter me with hopes 
that the provinces will e'er long speak for themselves, and 
that especially the maritime places of these provinces will 
rather incline to demand protection from his Highness and 
England than either from France or Holland. I give to all 
discom'se of that nature the best entertainment I can ; and if 
it please the Lord to give that (which as to all fair appear- 
ances He hath brought to the birth) strength to bring forth, 
I doubt not but a goodly child shall be come, which shall own 



236 CAMPAIGN IN FLANDERS. 

liis Higliness and England as one of his best godfathers." . 
. . . . " I have been bold to assume the title of Greneral, 
several of your lordship's letters to me carrying it ; and I 
must beseech you to believe I was not prompted to take it 
either by vanity or ambition ; but a name, though an airy 
thing in itself, yet in all cases where it is designed to carry 
on a business rather by authority than by force, doth many 
times signify considerably, especially among the meaner sort 
of people." 

" I have been forced to make the soldiers' bread of some 
old rye I found here, and am about to buy as much wheat to 
mix with it, the soldiers not being able to eat the rye-bread 
without a mixture of wheat. I have between six or seven 
hundred wounded and sick coming in. I put the wounded 
men in some houses near a Nunnery, and have bargained 
with the Nuns to wait upon them and furnish them. I pay 
them one stiver a day for each wounded soldier, for which 
they put a Nun to eight wounded men, and give them 
warm broth, meat, bread, and beer, and keep them clean in 
linen. I shall also allow the sick money for their present 
subsistence, and shall be as good a husband as I can. But I 
find my 22,000 livres will not hold out long, [a sum he had 
borrowed of the Cardinal.] I shall as soon as possible settle 
the custom and excise upon all commodities that come into 
the port and upon all beer sold in the town ; but until we get 
some quantity of beer and other provisions in, I dare not put 
too great a discouragement upon any that bring provisions." 

" I have given order to the Magistrates to 

prepare a full and clear account of all tilings that concern 
their government, justice, and public revenues ; a copy whereof 
I shall transmit to your lordship. I conceive that when it 
shall please Grod to reduce things to any settlement, the reve- 
nues of this place will not be inconsiderable ; and if, as I 
hope it may be e'er long, contributions can be raised sufficient 
for the subsistence of the garrison, his Highness will find 
that his conquest here will not only be honourable but pro- 
fitable." "I have abeady propounded it to 

his Eminence that when Bergh is taken, there must be course 
taken how contribution may be raised for the subsistence of 
this garrison, and that a passage must be allowed us either at 
Bergh or at Linck for sending over parties to collect it. It is 
a harsh pill, and he was loath to enter upon any debate upon 
it, but I doubt not to carry it. If they block us up here at 
land, his Highness can block them up by sea ; and it is so 
material a part of the Treaty that it must be stuck to." 

" As I am writing this, Mr. Simball arrives with your 



LOCKHART GOVERNOR OF DUNKIRK. 237 

lordsMp's of the ISth. The provisions that are on their way, 
and the despatch used in sending over money and some horse, 
gives us new testimony of his Highness' s goodness to us and 
your lordship's care of us. I pray there may be at least 300 
horse sent. It is the minimum quod sit, and there must be 
some provision of hay made for them, especially against 
winter." "I shall cause disarm the bour- 
geoisie and search for all manner of arms and ammunition 

as soon as there shall an'ive 150 horse." "If 

the cavalry were arrived, I would make the soldiers work 
apace [at the fortifications] for their tenpenee a day ; and 
now I mention the horse, I beg that his Highness will allow 
them all backs and breasts, and carabines. And if his 
Highness could spare twelve or fifteen hundred corslets 
for our pikemen, I would accustom them to wear them when 
they mount guard and at all other reviews. A stand of five 
hundred pikes well armed with head-piece and corslet will be 
a very terrible thing to be seen in these countries." 

" I have another request to your lordship, that you would 
be pleased to send me a good trumpeter or two ; and I desire 
they may be, for that kind, gentle and intelligent men; 
because I shall have frequent occasion to send them upon 
considerable messages." [He repeats this request in the next 
letter, urging that at present he has no one to employ on such 
errands but a di'um, " which is not handsome."] 

Referring to recruits, — "Some of my countrymen [from 
Scotland] will not do amiss, provided they be not kept in a 
body but distributed amongst the several companies. It is 
possible that the giving out that they are to serve under me 
may be some encouragement to them to come the more will- 
ingly." This advice was probably carried out; for a few 
weeks later a reporter from Paris writes, — " There is a regi- 
ment of Scotch under the command of Colonel Rutherford 
that hath done wonders before Grravehnes," imless indeed 
these were the Scots in the permanent service of the French 
King.] 

" I fear the King's sickness will occasion the Court's re- 
moval from this place before any contribution be settled by 
way of treaty or agreement. We shall not suffer much by 
it ; for by reason of their armies being here, little or nothing 
can be levied. I have given protections to some few people 
for their cows ; and when the poor souls come to ask what 
contribution they should pay, when indeed they needed rather 
a little charity to help them to some bread to preserve them 
from starving, I told them that all the contribution I would 
demand at present was that they should pray for the Protector 



238 CAMPAIGN IN FLANDERS. 

of England ; for wliioli they thanked me with tears and 
falling down on their knees." 

Bergh being taken, 1 July, he writes, — " The barbarities 
committed yesternight by the French at Bergh will beget me 
addresses from several of the most substantial inhabitants 
there, for liberty to transport themselves to Dunkirk. Their 
friends have spoken for them already ; but they are all rigid 
Catholics, and we have too many of that stamp here already. 
I hope his Highness will give leave to any oppressed Pro- 
testant family to come in under his protection here ; but 
without his Highness's express commands, I will receive no 
Catholics, not so much as those who have belonged to this 
place and have once deserted it. I am confident it will be a 
most acceptable sacrifice to that Grod who hath given his 
Highness and the nation an interest here, that this place may 
be made an asylum for poor Protestants." 

*' Count Morrett informed me this day, 6 July, that the 
Cardinal is advised of a plot the Spaniards have, to seduce 
and withdi^aw the ecclesiastics from this place, and therefore 
conim-ed me to engage them to stay by all good usage and 
fair promises. I gave him a civil answer, though I shall 
pray that the Spanish plot in so far may prosj^er ; and as far 

as handsomely I can, I shall co-operate with them " 

"I have caused take clown all the little images of Notre Dame 
that were at all the ports, [town-gates.] and in their stead shall 
put up his Highness's arms ; only I could wish that a pattern 
or model to make all the rest by were likewise sent to me, to- 
gether with some motto or inscription. I intend tomorrow 
to emit [issue] an order requiring all such as have concealed 
arms or ammunition to bring them in within twenty four 
hours, under pain of having their goods confiscated, their 
joersons punished, and themselves and families banished the 
town. I intend that the search shall bo made in private 
houses, but that no convents shall be meddled with till eight 
or ten days pass, and all the noise of it be over ; and then I 
think that I shall find some if not many of the priests guilty ; 
and such shall find no quarter." 

Anxious as the new Grovernor was to establish a Protestant 
place of worship, he felt that it would be impolitic to exas- 
perate the Catholic party before he had thoroughly entrenched 
his own position. His reflections on this topic, addressed to 
the Protector, evince his usual sagacitj^, — "As Rome," he 
says, was not built in a day, so neither will it be pulled down 
in a day." . . . . " There is but one parish in this 
town ; and as things stand, the to^n not being furnished with 
any thing fit for its defence, and two Roman-Catholic armies 




The Outbage inDumuRK- Church. 



LOCKHART GOVERNOR OF DUNKIRK, 239 

near, I leave it to your Higliness to judge wlietlier it be a 
seasonable time to tui^n tlie inhabitants out of their parish, 
church. I heard a sermon last Lords day at the town-house, 
which is as public a place as the chiu-ch : and until a church 
can be built, shall make use of that place ; and, by the way, 
must beg yom^ Highness's pleasure concerning the building 
of a church. As to the rebuking of soldiers for having their 
hats on, the business Avas thus. The morning after we entered 
the town, there were some who were industrious to j)ut the 
soldiers in very ill humours ; and it was openly discoursed 
amongst them that it was fit to pillage the place, and espe- 
cially the chiu'ches where there w^as much riches. Their 
insolence went to that height that one of them lighted his 
pipe of tobacco at one of the wax lights of the altar, where a 
priest was saying Mass ; which occasioned my being sent for 
in haste, and when I came amongst them, I commanded 
them to their arms, where they ought to have been, for they 
•were not as then lodged' I told them it w^as ill done to come 
into the Romish churches ; and if they needs would satisfy 
their curiosity, they should come so as not to give distm-bance 
toothers in that which they imagined to be their devotion." 

"As to the priority that the Romish religion 

seems to have of the Protestant, the giver of toleration must 
be much greater than that which is tolerated ; and there is 
no provision made for the Protestant religion at Dunkirk in 
the Treaty betwixt France and England, because a free and 
plenary profession and exercise of it was never questioned." 
. . . " I ought not to importune your Highness with 
so rude a letter, but I have rather chosen to appear before you 
in any dress than delay for a minute the giving your High- 
ness an account of your affairs. And though by it your 
Highness will see how far I have come short of jDerforming 
what might have been done had your Highness employed 
another, yet I may say in much sincerity that I have en- 
deavom-ed to lay out my poor talent faithfully ; and never 
have more joy than when I think the Lord gives me the least 
opportunity of doing anything that may be acceptable to 
your Highness," &c. &c. It is evident from the above that 
some persons had been charging Sir William with too great 
forbearance towards the Romanists. He wisely replies, 
" Why should I favour the Protestants ? They are abeady 
in the ascendant at Dunkirk." 

In the same letter he thankfully acknowledges the Pro- 
tector's kindness to his "poor wife and family" then in 
England. When he had sent her home in the spring, page 
198, he assigned as his reason that his enemies were so nu- 



240 CAMPAIGN IN FLANDERS. 

merous in Paris that it was no longer safe to leave lier there 
unprotected. But now that he had a safe asylum to offer 
her in Dunkirk, guarded by English hearts and arms, he ap- 
pears to have requested her speedy retui-n, — apparently in 
July. 

A week later, he informs Thurloe that he has issued a pro- 
clamation for the observance of the Lords day, and abolishing 
all punishment for those who thought fit to traffic on saints' 
holy days, greatly to the scandal of the priests, five of whom 
had taken leave upon it to quit the place, much to Sir 
William's own satisfaction. — " Your lordship would have ad- 
mired to see the posture this town was in last Lords day, 
— not a shop open, nor anything that was undecent to be 
seen. The holy days, as the bigots alledge, begin already to 
be very much j)rofaned. Indeed I must say the temper of 
the generality of the people here is douce and tractable ; and 
I am confident that a hundred French would be more unquiet 
and unmanageable than the whole body of this town. I have 
ordered the Magistrates to cause make a pulpit in the town- 
house. I intend to use that place for our assembling together 
till a Protestant place can be built. I have already marked 
the ground where it is to be built, and have buried Lieut. 
coL Fen wick there." .... " I am informed that some 
of our soldiers go to Mass, and have ordered their being en- 
quired after. I intend to prosecute them as those who keep 
intelligence with the enemy, and am sure they will do so if 
they meet with opportunity. Nevertheless I do not mean 
to pimish them otherwise than by putting some public dis- 
grace upon them and so excluding them the garrison." 

" I had yesterday [9 Aug.] a meeting witli the Jesuits, 
Capuchins, and EecoUettes of this place, when the oath I ad- 
ministered to the soldiers and inhabitants was debated. Their 
main exception was against that part of it that obligeth them 
to the defence of the town ; and upon a serious consideration 
of what they offered, I think it is just to except their being 
obliged to carry arms" .... "In the next place they 
scrupled at being obliged to reveal plots or conspiracies, 
urging their oath of secrecy as t'^ what shall come to their 
knowledge by confession ; but I held forth to them that their 
engagements that way would have no consideration with us." 

A few weeks after Lockhart was in possession, it was under- 
stood that the Cardinal intended to re- visit Dunkirk and 
confer with him on sundry matters. Lockhart accordingly 
put both his garrisons under arms and fired oft' salutes from 
the big guns. But all his com'tesies seemed thrown away. 
The Cardinal would not consent to dine with him; and 



LOCKHART GOVERNOR OF DU^JKIRK. 241 

during tlie colloquy, which took place in his Eminence's 
coach, nothing but complaints were ui'ged, — the disputed 
frigate in the harbour was still retained, — the French artillery 
officers had not received the value of the town-bells, — a priest 
had been threatened with hanging, — a pulpit had been taken 
out of one of the churches and set up in the town-house with- 
out the magistrates' order, — the English forces in the field, 
serving under Turenne, were below the stipulated number, — 
and in a letter which he [Lockhait] had sent to his Major- 
general Morgan it was stated that the conservation of Dun- 
kirk was their main object ; assisting the French in the field 
being now only a business upon the bye. &c. e^c. None knew 
better than our Ambassador how to reduce such petty elements 
"into a composure ;" and though my lord Cardinal persisted 
in dri\dng on to Bergh there to pass the night, yet the con- 
ference was renewed in that town on the morrow, when his 
genial disi^osition once more prevailed. Lockhart, to adopt 
a phrase of his own on another occasion, had contrived " to 
addouce him." The wider affairs of Europe were passed in 
review ; and conscious perhaps of a failure in courtesy on the 
previous day towards Lady Lackhart, he graciously informed 
Sir William at parting that he would see his wife next morn- 
ing and would be beholden to her for his breakfast. 

How sedulously and gracefully the amiable dame enter- 
tained her guest on the morrow is not on record ; but the 
scene easily drapes itself before our fancy in the old saloon of 
Fort Leon, if not in all its details, yet in its essential in- 
terest. In the evening of her days, in old England, this 
breakfast with the prime minister of France could not fail to 
be one of her proudest recollections. She would recall with 
exactest fidelity his well-adjusted phraseology when he drank 
to the Protector's health ; or, supposing his temperate habits 
to have precluded suchform, when he ventured to hope that 
her illustrious uncle would one day visit Flanders in person. 
Did he not also on that occasion express his regrets that her 
little " Julius," named after himself, had been left at home 
in England, — until re-assured by the fond mother that the 
ally of their house could never be forgotten by one who, 
together with the Christian name of his Eminence, bore the 
combined features of Cromwell and Lockhart ? 

Nor would the lady leave out of the picture the dignified 
position which the Governor of Dunkirk was unavoidably 
filling at the aforesaid dejeuner. Master of the situation in 
a sense which no English general has ever since been per- 
mitted to realize on the Continent of Europe, Lockhart could 
point his guest to the merchant craft from the opposite shore. 



242 CAMPAIGN IN FLANDERS. 

as they warped past tlie Splinter and struggled through, the 
tortuous harbour-mouth ; and quietly hint at the urgent ne- 
cessity of cutting a more practicable channel sea-ward, to let 
the heavier men-of-war through. Then might the Nasehi/, 
the Nicodcmus, the Tenth Whelp, the Trades-Iiicrease, or the 
Constant Warwick, form a permanent chain of communica- 
tion with England which no papal armada would ever venture 
to break, or Flemish pirate molest. 

Was Hugh Peters one of the party at this breakfast, in his 
capacity of prime chaplain ? The case is possible, but the 
probabilities are against it, since Lockhart evidently regarded 
him as one whom it was necessary to restrain from travelling 
out of his own province. He had recently come over from 
England armed with sundry professional powers ; and though 
Lockhart sent him back with a flattering passport of dismissal, 
the postscript suggests that the terms on which they mutually 
stood were not absolutely cordial. " My lord " says he, 
" Mr. Peters hath taken leave three or four times ; but still 
something falls out which hinders his return to England. He 
hath been twice at Bergh, and hath spoken with the Cardinal 
three or four times. I kept myself by, and had a care that 
he did not importune him with too long speeches. He re- 
tm-ns laden with an account of all things here, and hath 
undertaken every man's business. I must give him that 
testimony that he gave us three or four very honest sermons; 
and if it were possible to get him to mind preaching and to 
forbear the troubling of himself with other things, he would 
certainly prove a very fit minister for soldiers. I hope he 
cometh well satisfied from this place. He hath often insinu- 
ated to me his desire to stay here, if he had a call. Some of 
the officers also have been with me to that purpose ; but I 
have shifted him so handsomely as I hope he Avill not be dis- 
pleased. For I have told him that the greatest service he 
can do us is to go to England and carry on his propositions, 
and to own us in all om' interests ; which he hath undertaken 
with much zeal." 

In August, 1658, a great council of war was held at Bruges 
among the Spanish grandees, at which it was decreed that the 
intention of the invaders manifestly pointing tov.^ards Ostend, 
(which since the loss of Dunkirk had become the Spanish 
base,) all stragglers and detachments throughout Flanders 
should be called in to join their respective regiments within 
eiglit days, or else be hanged for it. It was f m-ther resolved, 
in order to confine the Anglo-French operations to their 
actual limits, to drown all the country round about Nieuport, 
Ostend, Damme, and Bruges ; which was actually put 



FORT OLIVER. 243 

into execution, — 240,000 acres of the best meadow land 
being laid under water, " making thereby the cattle very 
cheap and the butter very dear;" and of course inflicting 
incredible misery on the poor country people. Meanwhile it 
is more than doubtful whether Mazarin had any real designs 
on Ostend. tie would occasionally drop allusions to such a 
project when in colloquy with Lockhart ; but in truth French 
acquisition rather pointed in a southerly and inland direction. 
As to any fm"ther conquests on the sea-coast, too much by 
far had already been done for England — so ever}'- Frenchman 
had come to think. 

Fo)i-OUver. 

Lockhart's multiform capacity, which befriended him in all 
emergencies, had for some time been directed to the restora- 
tion of the town's defences. A new tower to guard the 
entrance of the harbour was added to Fort Leon, while brick 
and stone at various other points were made to take the place 
of old ruinous wood-work, already greatly shaken by artil- 
lery. Along the foot of the glacis he led an additional 
water-course, what the French call an avant-fosse. See the 
map of " Dunkirk in 1662." And lastly he constructed a 
five-bastion work about a mile south of the town on the Canal 
de Bergh, and called it Fort Oliver. This suburban work 
was apparently designed to protect an external camp, a scheme 
which the sm'face of the ground, reticulated as it was with 
water- com\ses, rendered eminently practicable, and which 
subsequently received the sanction of that eminent engineer 
Yauban. The construction of Fort Oliver was evidently a 
pet project with Sir Williani, " I doubt not," says he, " but 
before winter overtake us, that fort shall be one of the most 
regular pieces in Flanders, and could wish with all my heart 
that his Highness could see what pennyworths he hath for 
his money." It subsequently formed the nucleus of Vauban's 
" Camp retranche," rendering the investment of Dunkirk, as 
investments were then conducted, impracticable. 

Grravelines, on the coast, and only a short distance west of 
Mardyke, having been in a state of siege throughout the 
summer, sm-renderod to the Anglo-French forces under 
Turenne about a week before Oliver's death ; and has ever 
since remained a part of France. This was in September 
1658. Both Lockhart and Mazarin must have felt that their 
mutual schemes experienced a species of arrest by the tidings 
from England ; yet for a short while longer Spain was stiU 
the common enemy, nor did Lockhart allow his personal ap- 



244 CAMPAIGN IN FLANDERS. 

preheusions to paralyze his patriotic action. On botli sides 
of the water, " the shade of Cromwell," as Hallam has ex- 
pressed it, " seemed to hover over and protect the wreck of 
his greatness." Dr. Co3ins writes to Sir Edward Hyde from 
Paris, 18 Oct. — "It was expected that Cromwell's death 
would have wrought a great change both in France and 
Flanders before now. But people say that the [English] 
rebels are courted both by France and Spain." . . . "It 
is a sad thing to say, but here in the French court they wear 
mourning apparel for Cromwell ; yea, the King of France 
and all do it. And Lockhart is homly expected to come 
hither, and to be treated as before." Yes, — the great man 
was not soon to be forgotten in France. In the valleys of 
Piedmont the homage paid to the memory of Cromwell ap- 
proached idolatry. When the son of Philip Skippon, during 
the succeeding age, was travelling in Switzerland, he observed 
that the hats of the citizens were raised at the mere mention 
of his name. The Anglo-Spanish-papal party also remember 
him. 

The Protector Eichard, and, after him, the Council of State, 
were only too glad to retain Lockhart's services at the court 
of France. He could not therefore be always at Dunkirk ; 
and hardly two months elapsed before one of his terms of 
absence proved the occasion of an outbreak of insubordination 
among the private soldiers, which he relates in a long letter 
to Mr. Secretary Thurloe, dated 8 Nov. The mutineers had 
called to arms and pillaged the provision markets, assigning 
as a cause the detention of their pay, though Lockhart sus- 
pected some maligner influence at the bottom. There is a 
very different version of a mutiny given in the Lockhart 
papers, in which the treason is imputed not to the common 
soldiers but to their ofiicers, and points to a somewhat later 
period. Lockhart, we are there told, hearing of it while in 
London, promptly crossed the Straits, scaled the town-waU 
unperceived by the sentries, and surprising a group of officers 
while in debate, passed his rapier through the body of the 
ringleader, and reduced the rest to instant submission ; — con- 
cerning all which, it is only necessary to say that his extant 
correspondence gives no colour to any such transaction-, 
further than this, that both garrison and governor were, as a 
matter of course, systematically subjected by Stuart agencies 
to experimental assaults on their fidelity.^ 

On the 18 May, 1659, a characteristic letter of his was 
read to the House by Sir Henry Vane, in which he declared 
his unaltered resolution to maintain Dunkirk, whomsoever 
the supreme power might nominate as its governor ; and 



REPORT ON THE CONDITION OF DUNKIRK. 



245 



^'^' should the place ever be in danger," the document adds, 
" he will occur to its defence, though as a private man with a 
musket on his shoulder." But while urging the supply of 
the garrison, he had fair reason to add that something was 
also due to himself ;— his salary as Ambassador having now 
run m arrear to near £5,000,— his debts on that accoimt very 
great, and his credit almost sunk. Two bills of exchange 
which he had recently been compelled to draw for the neces- 
sities of the garrison amounting to seventeen himdred pounds, 
these he entreats may be discharged, &c. &c. The Council 
could not but feel that this was a very reasonable claim. Still 
it was thought advisable that the first step should be to 
receive the report of a body of Commissioners who were about 
to visit the place. 



Report on the condition of Dunldrk. 

The officer left in 
command at Dunkirk 
during Lockhart's 
absence was Colonel 
Roger Allsop, with 
whose name were 
sometimes associated 
those of Henry Lil- 
lingston and Tobias 
Bridge. Their com- 
munications with 
the authorities in 
London consisted of 
little more than ur- 
gent requests for 
money, accompanied 
however with con- 
stant assurances of 
fidelity, and warm 
^(^^^^^'^'^^^ encomiums on the 

ARMS or DUNKIRK. couduct and character 

of their governor. " We humbly thank your Honom^s," they 
say, " for the £1300 sent to us lately, though we assm^e you 
we had already borrowed as much here since the Commis- 
sioners went, to supply our urgent necessities. We do assure 
your Honours that with these supplies timely sent, we shall 
be able to give a good account of this place for yoiu' use ; 
[otherwise] we cannot answer what you may perhaps expect 




246 CAMPAIGN IN FLANDERS. 

of US, though we perish in the defence of this place which 
oui" ambition and desire is to perpetuate to our nation, as a 
goad in the sides of their enemies, and to secure our footing 
in the Continent of Europe, lost ever since Uueen Mary's 
days, and now regained. And doubtless we ought to pre- 
serve that carefully which the Lord hath given us so gra- 
ciously." Allsop appealing to Fleetwood says, " I beseech 
your Excellency to honour me with your answer in relation 
to these things. It would in my opinion very highly reflect 
upon the honour and reputation of our nation if we should 
lose this town unhandsomely that hath been so famous in our 
thoughts before we had it. A little help will prevent that 
danger. The officers and soldiers are all very hearty and 
courageous, notwithstanding the want of money, the noise of 
the Peace, and other discouragements laid upon them." Who 
can doubt that the sentiments thus expressed by the honest 
soldiers on the spot were shared by their compatriots at 
home ? 

The Commissioners above referred to were three officers, by 
name Ashfield, Parker, and Pearson, who in June 1659 were 
instructed by the Council of State to repair to Dunkirk and 
there make a full investigation into the state of the town and 
the resources and revenue of the garrison and harbour. Their 
report in full is extant, though a few salient points only need 
be noticed here. The town defences, they conceive, require 
the constant presence of 3000 foot besides the regiment of 
horse ; but in time of siege, 8000 foot and horse would be 
requisite ; which number, they are of opinion, " by Grod's 
blessing and careful conduct would be able to check the best 
armies of France and Flanders " ! Fort Oliver ought to 
have accommodation for 500 or 600 men, and Fort Manning 
for at least 50. [Fort Manning was a small square fortalice 
standing midway between Fort Oliver and the town.] 
Touching Mardyke they recommend its immediate destruc- 
tion, as too distant to be defended, and as liable if once in 
the hands of an enemy to blockade the entrance into Dun- 
kirk. This requii'es explanation. At that period a long- 
sandbank , called the Schm'ken, lay parallel with the shore 
in front of Dunkirk harbour ; and the only available channel 
for large ships between the sandbank and the main land was 
commanded by the guns of Mardyke. In the first place 
therefore, Mardyke must be in the hands of the possessors of 
Dunkirk, — or, secondly, Mardyke must be dismantled, — or, 
thirdly, some better way must be discovered of entering Dun- 
kirk. This last alternative was eventually adopted, and con- 
sisted in cutting a channel straight through the Schurken 



commissioners' report. 247 

into the deep sea, and defending it bj two long jetties of 
wood, as indicated by the dotted lines in the map at page 
199. By whom this was first projected it is now impossible 
to determine, but the paramount necessity of English men- 
of-war having easy access at all times gives it the appearance 
of an English scheme. It was left for Vauban and his 
engineers to carry it into successful execution. 

The Commissioners made enquiry into the cause of the 
late mutiny, and found it arose solely from the men 
fancying they were treated less liberally than their com- 
rades in England. So far were they from political revolt 
that they unanimously signed an address of allegiance to the 
Parliament. 

In the matter of public revenue, there was, first, the state- 
revenue or that which belonged to England as lord-para- 
mount. This amounted (omitting fractions) to £12,999. 
The governor's revenue was £2,419. The town's revenue 
£6,222, The town-major's revenue, besides perquisites, £77. 
In ail rather more than £21,719 Of course the Commis- 
sioners could not foresee that part of the state-revenue, con- 
sisting of black-mail levied on neighbouring towns as a 
protection from plunder, would be diminished by the Treaty 
of the Pja-enees which gave some of those towns back to 
Spain, for that Treaty had not yet been transacted. Those 
sm^rounding towns were Bergh, Bourbourgh, Cassel, Furnes, 
Bell, and Peppering, and they contributed annually £4,484. 

A careful census of the population living within the walls 
of the old town, exclusive of the military, produced 1060 as 
the number of the men, 1621 women, and 2419 children, in 
all 5100 ; and the names of about 150 of the principal in- 
habitants are then recorded. Peter Faulconnier the baillie 
or provost was the leading man among them, a title which he 
amply merited. He was greatly alarmed at the changes 
which the Commissioners threatened in the administration of 
municipal law, and made a formal appeal on the subject to 
Lockhart, but eventually adopted the prudent com"se of giv- 
ing his visitors a parting feast, and waiting his opportunity, 
which was not long in coming. 

^>We now retm'n to Lockhart who was passing some time in 
London, a valuable adviser at a critical moment, and wliom 
we may fancy closeted with John Milton, Lord Broghill, 
Edmund Ludlow, or John Bradshaw, (supposing the latter 
to be still surviving) urging Gfeorge Monk and other avowed 
republicans to save the nation from relapsing into Egyptian 
bondage by establishing the commonwealth on a popular and 
immoveable basis. He miglit indeed, had his code of honom* 



248 CAMPAIGN IN FLANDERS. 

been as speculative as MoelIl's, have easily anticipated that 
general's action, and by inviting the exiled King to Dunkirk, 
gathered the chief spoils of the hour. But to double-dyed 
treason such as this towards his best friends, it was impossible 
that he could stoop ; — almost equally repulsive must have 
been the thought of humbling himself before the Stuart party, 
who by intercepting his letters had long been familiar with 
his lavish expressions of admiration for the Protector and of 
contempt for the exiled court. On the break-up therefore of 
the second protectorate, no possible alternative seemed to be 
left him but the restoration of the Republic, at which he 
seems to have rejoiced as mucli as Bradshaw himself. Chan- 
cellor Hyde read him aright when he said to Mordaunt, 23 
May 1650, — " The King doth not believe that Lord Jermyn 
hath had anything to do with Lockhart, who is a very wary 
man, and hath never discovered the least inclination to the 
King, but on the contrary somewhat of animosity, [personal 
dislike.] The man is valuable, whether he be master of Dun- 
kirk or not, which I confess I cannot think any Scotchman 
can be whilst the garrison is purely English. If Sir H. 
Jones thinks he can dispose him, let him have all the en- 
couragement to attempt it. And if he find life in the attempt, 
he may easily let the King know it, and he will have all 
imaginable satisfaction here. But I shall not be sm^prised if 
Lockhart betake himself to the Eepul)lic, of which party he is 
in his inclinations, unless the dislike of some persons disin- 
cline him to a conjunction with them." 

This anticipation of Hyde's was amply verified when on 
the old Parliament's resumption of office, Lockhart addressed 
a congratulatory letter to Mr. Speaker Lenthall, informing 
him that in celebration of tlie event he had caused a feu de 
joie to be delivered from all the great guns under his command 
both by sea and land. At the Treaty of the Pyrenees where 
he acted as their plenipotentiary, although Britain was at the 
time convulsed with anarch}^, yet the homage he received 
formed a striking contrast to the neglect which attended the 
Stuart representative. Cardinal Mazarin, whatever his private 
motives, was not unwilling to be still regarded as the friend 
and political ally of the (hitlierto) uncorruptible Englishman. 

By that Treaty, which put an end to the war, France gave 
back to Spain (in exchange for other cessions) many of the 
towns in Flanders captm-ed by the aid of the English, namely 
Bergh, Fm-nes, Dixmude, Ypres, Oudenarde, Merville, and 
Menin ; by which it will be seen, on reference to the map, 
that Dunkirk and Mardyke, (which by silence were confirmed 
to the English nation,) were again environed on the south 



DUNKIRK ANNEXED TO THE CROWN. 249 

and east by Spanish forces, the French territory at this point 
being pushed no farther than to embrace Gravelines and St. 
Yenant. Loekhart, as soon as the sittings broke up, passed 
through Dunkirk on his way to England, his object being to 
. penetrate if possible the designs of general Monk. Upright 
himself, he accepted Monk's solemn assurances of fidelity to 
the commonwealth, and went back to France only to hear 
with astonishment that the nation was unanimous in calling 
home the King. Bowing therefore to the inevitable, he made 
his submission by dis[)atching Colonel Lillingston to General 
Monk with an address signed by himself and his garrison, 
expressive of acquiescence in the action of the Convention- 
parliament whether as touching the King or the country. 
This was on the 11th of May 16(50, too late to afford him any 
real service, for Charles II. entered London in triumph a few 
days later, and the governor of Dunkirk received orders to 
resign his commission into the hands of Sir Edward Harley. 
Lady Loekhart meanwhile, together with her retinue, was 
carried home and landed at Gravesend by a part of the fleet 
under Lord Montague. 

Loekhart, having bidden a last farewell to "the brave 
garrison who almost idolized him," quietly retired to Eng- 
land, a private man, stripped of his great emj^^loyments, but 
still jealous for his country's honour. Some may count it a 
crowning act of magnan amity that he refused a Marshal's 
staff of France, with other emoluments, which Cardinal 
Mazarin offered him at this crisis in exchange for the 
ports of Flanders. But whatever factions might rage, all 
Englishmen seemed possessed with a resolution to keejj what 
Oliver had won. The Protector Richard, in his schedule of 
debts, stated that he had borrowed on his personal security 
£6,090 for the supply of Dunkirk. Almost the last expu'ing 
act of the Council of State was to set apart £1200 a week 
for the same pm-pose ; and now in the first month after the 
restoration of royalty, an Act was proposed for drawing 
up what was called an " Establishment of the garrison." 
Finally on 11 Sep. a bill was brought in for formally annex- 
ing to the crown of England, Dimkirk and Mardyke in Flan- 
ders and the island of Jamaica in America. An order might 
issue directing the common hangman to burn the " Act for the 
preservation of his Jlighncss's person," but the preservation of 
his Highness' s conquests was a passion with the entire nation, 
— his restored Majesty and his Majesty's bosom friends ex- 
cepted. In the course of the next two years no less than 
£33,000 were expended in the fortifications of Dimkirk, the 
stone for the purpose being quarried in Portland. By the 



250 CAMPAIGN IN FLANDERS. 

above mentioned instrument styled the Establishment of the 
garrison, it was decreed that 3,600 should be the number of 
the foot and 432 that of the cavahy ; the pay of the common 
soldiers to be eight stivers a day. (Seven and a half stivers 
representing eightpence sterling.) The Duke of York's 
body-guard of a hundred horse, at present left behind in 
Flanders, to constitute part of the garrison, &o. and all this 
too at a time when measures were in progress for disbanding 
the standing armies of England. 

When the King sent for his Portuguese bride in 1661, he 
compelled himself to go through the distasteful process of 
addi'essing the House and laying before them his great need 
of additional pocket money. Mr. Speaker, replying for the 
Commons, carried back a message which looks very like the 
production of some satirical wit ; but, if meant seriously, it 
was worthy of that grand vivesector Dr. Grauden. In one 
respect its tone was unequivocal. They were anxious to meet 
his Majesty's wishes, but Dunkirk must not be overlooked. 
" Grreat Sir," it began, — " I am not able to express, at the 
hearing of these words with what a sympathy the whole body 
of the Parliament was presently affected. The circulation of 
the blood, of which om- natm-alists do tell us, was never so 
sensibly demonstrated as by this experiment. Before your 
Majesty's words were all fallen from your lips, you might 
have seen us blush. All our blood came into our faces ; 
from thence it hasted down without obstruction to every part 
of the body ; and after a due consulting of the several parts, 
it was found necessary to breathe a vein. We cannot forget 
how much our treasure hath been exhausted, but we re- 
member also that it was by usurping and tyrannical powers, 
and therefore we are easily persuaded to be at some more 
expence to keep them out." [After touching on various 
items of outlay, Mr. Speaker ad els] " The honourable acces- 
sions of Dunkirk, Tangier, and Jamaica, do at present require 
a great supply ; but we have reason to believe that in time 
to come they will repay this nation their principal with good 
interest." In the end the Commons vote his Majesty twelve 
hundred and three score thousand pounds, to be levied in 
eighteen months by six quarterly payments. And how did 
his Majesty testify his gratitude for the gift ? — By privately 
selling Duukhk to the French King in the com'se of the very 
next year, to save his own blushes in asking for more. The 
story is not new, that Charles once gave as a reason for reading 
his brief speeches, that he had so often asked his faithful Com- 
mons for money that he was ashamed to look them in the 
face ; but we learn from the above passage from whom it was 
lie caught his trick of blushing. The above memorable 



GOOD ADVICE. 251 

speech is not recorded in tlie Commons'' Journals, but it may- 
be read in full in the Lords' Journals, xi. 35 7. 

Though the acquisition of Dunkirk had been made at the 
expence of Englishmen's blood, and on that account had won 
their affections, it was well enough understood that the scheme 
was altogether Oliverian. There were persons about the re- 
stored court mean enough to urge that all traces and memo- 
rials of the recent government should utterly perish out of 
sight ; and this envious spirit, as we know, expressed itself in 
all manner of petty obliterations, erasures, and changes of 
office, "throughout the realm. What wonder then that 
Charles II. sliould be encom-aged to think that the splendour 
even of dominating the Flemish coast was tarnished by its 
passing into his hands from those of an usurper ? His per- 
sonal inclination meanwhile would gather strength fi'oni the 
testimony of military men who, corrupted by France, assured 
him that the place was untenable ; and Greorge Monk him- 
self was one of these evil advisers. On the other hand it so 
happened that while the matter was in secret debate, that 
sagacious soldier Count Schomberg was passing through Eng- 
land, and endeavouring to instil good counsel into the royal 
ears, until he saw that good counsel was thrown away. 
Among other things he advised the King to declare for Pro- 
testantism abroad ; for though it might not suit his Majesty's 
taste, it would certainly promote his interest by securing the 
allegiance of the Calvinists of France. He enlarged on the 
valour of Cromwell's old soldiers, — the best officers he had 
ever known, — and lamented to see their places filled by pro- 
fligate young men. And as for Dunkirk, a firm resolution to 
hold it would keep both France and Spain in perpetual and 
wholesome check He had himself carefully examined the 
position, and was of opinion that so long as England was 
master of the sea, Dunkirk was safe. The King of France 
might vapour and talk big about breaking with England if 
the place were not given back to him ; in reality he had no 
such intention. 

King Charles however was not to be turned from his pm*- 
pose. The price finally agreed upon, for Dunkirk city and 
Mardyke fort, together with the forts between Dunkirk and 
Bergh, with all their artillery and other warlike and con- 
structive materials, was five million li^Tes tournois. Bishop 
Burnet says that the money " was immediately squandered 
away among the mistress's creatm'es;" and though this must 
be accepted as a loose statement which tlie bishop could have 
no means of certifying, there can be little doubt that the 
whole affair was felt to be a national loss and a national dis- 



252 CAMPAIGN IN FLANDERS. 

grace. Such were tlie first fruits of the personal prerogative 
which Englishmen had shewn such alacrity to re-invest their 
sovereign lord withal. 

But now about the surrender. A French account is the 
following. So incredible did the proposition appear to the gar- 
rison, and so confident where they of parliamentary support 
in resisting the order to quit, that they absolutely refused to 
move. Louis meanwhile was riding post to view his glorious 
prize, until informed that the prize was not yet within his 
grasp. At this juncture of affairs, Peter Faulconnier the 
energetic baillie came to his succour, and by the lavish distri- 
bution of his own monies among the English governor and 
officers, induced them to put to sea forthwith. They had not 
sailed many miles before they met the envoys sent by the 
English Parliament to arrest the transaction — too late, — too 
late. " Desormais Dunherque est rille Firoi^aiseJ' 

All this looks very dramatic, but. it is wide enough of the 
fact. The bargain once struck, there was nothing to conceal, 
and all parties were given to understand that for divers good 
and sufficient reasons the place had been sold to the French 
King, and the English garrison had nothing to do but to 
clear out. The numerous documents attesting the receipt of 
the first instalment of the money, its transmission to the 
Tower of London, and the dispersion of the troops, are all 
preserved in the Record-office ; and they certainly indicate no 
hesitation on the part of the men or officers to quit. Indeed 
there was no alternative. Lord Andrew Rutherford, suc- 
cessor to Sir Edward Harley in the governorship, early received 
instructions to disband his forces and transport them to Eng- 
land, and these instructions he promptly fidfiUed, — the Duke 
of York's regiment alone remaining behind in the French 
King's service. 

Among the orders regulating the departure of the troops, 
one was that their arms should be delivered up before leaving ; 
but then follows a final direction at seeming variance there- 
yfiOx — " And you shall take care," the warrant proceeds, 
" that all of them, on landing [in England] shall have passes 
to go to their several homes ; enjoining them to dispose of 
their swords and horses remaining with them, within four- 
teen days after their arrival at the place of their intended 
abode." A letter from Lord Rutherford on reaching Deal 
with his men (preceded by one from Sir George Carteret) will 
now give us a farewell ghmpse of the gallant little army 
which for five years and a half had so well sustained the 
English reputation abroad. 



SALE OF DUNKIRK. 253 



Sir George Carteret to the King. 

Calais, 18—28 November 1662. 
May it please your Majesty, — All the money was yes- 
terday shipped aboard the yachts and the Kitchen ketch ; and 
they had set sail this morning if the town of Dunkirk had been 
surrendered yesterday, as was intended. But it is to be done 
this day ; and tomorrow in the morning tide, if the wind and 
weather hold as now it is. Alderman Beckwell shall sail, Grod 
willing, towards England with a convoy of thi'ee of your 
Majesty's ships now riding in this road. According to your 
Majesty's instructions, together with the very earnest desire 
of Mons. d'Estrades who pretends it will be for your 
Majesty's service, I shall stay here until the French King's 
coming, except I receive order from youi' Majesty to the con- 
trary. Mons. d'Estrades makes account that he will be here 
about Monday or Tuesday. Your Majesty's most humble 
subject and servant. 

Gr. Carteret. 

Andrew Lord Rutherford [to one of the State secretaries ?~\ 

Deal, 19 November 1662. 
Right Honourable, — We parted all yesterday from 
Dunkirk, — the manner whereof admirable, for the soldiers' 
readiness and joy to obey his Majesty's commands, — their 
most civil, obliging, and unparalleled carriage in laying down 
their arms, to the glory of English soldiers, and giving the 
lye to those that would accuse them of mutiny ; as you will 
see by this enclosed. The three companies of field officers of 
his Majesty's regiment are here. We have no order for them 
to march, nor when. I beg I may know it with all expedi- 
tion, if thought fit. I stay this day at Deal to dispose all 
things civil, and separate om^ disbanded soldiers, that they 
may march not in troops together. Kiss most humbly your 
honour's hand. Rt. hon. your most obedient servant, 

Rutherford. 

Lord Rutherford's style it will be observed is abrupt and 
soldier-like. In one of his dispatches he excuses his verbal 
defects, though indeed the apology seems quite uncalled for, 
on the ground of less familiarity with the English than with 
the French tongue. With Cromwell's permission he had 
formerly levied a body of Scots for the French King's service, 
who were quite independent of the " Six Thousand" English 



254 CAMPAIGN IN FLANDERS. 

under Lockliart. See a reference to their gallantry at page 
237. Before the taking of Dunkirk, Lockhart had written 
concerning him to Thurloe in the following eulogistic style. — 
" Colonel Eutterford being now upon his journey towards 
Scotland to make his levy of 500 men, by yom- lordship's 
favour granted to him last summer, did entreat me to make 
this address unto your lordship in his behalf, that he might 
obtain your additional order for three or four hundred more. 
He being a person whose discreet conduct hath justly gained 
him a good reputation in France, where he hath been an 
honour to his country, I was the more easily persuaded by 
him to oiier his suit to your lordship's consideration, and 
withal to solicit for expedition, since the Cardinal intends that 
his regiment shall be one of the first in the field this next 
campaign" (and in a postcript,) — "I beg your lordship's 
favour to Colonel Eutterford, who really is a person of much 
honour and esteem here [at Paris,] and hath well deserved it 
by the considerable services he hath rendered." 

His title of lordship we may suppose was conferred on him 
at the Kestoration. On quitting Dunkirk, he received an 
appointment to the governorship of Tangier, but venturing 
one day to ride too far into the country without sufficient 
escort, he was waylaid by a party of Moors and slain. Bishop 
Burnet and others. 



Treaty for the sale of Dunldrh to the French. 

Louis, by the grace of Cod, King of France and Navarre, 
to all to whom these presents shall come. Greeting. — The 
Count d'Estrades having concluded the following Treaty with 
the commissioners deputed by our most dear and most beloved 
brother the King of Creat Britain ; — And the King of Great 
Britain, desirous more and more to increase the friendship 
already contracted with his most Christian Majesty, having 
thought himself obliged to give ear to the proposals made to 
him, on his part to treat upon reasonable conditions con- 
cerning the town and citadel of Dunkirk, and to embrace the 
same as the most agreeable and efficacious means to per- 
petuate the good understanding he is desirous to propagate 
with his most Christian Majesty, and which is so necessary 
for the good of his subjects and the common tranquillity of 
both nations. 

In the first place, it is concluded and agreed that the town 
of Dunkirk, together with the citadel, redoubts, old and new 
fortifications, outworks, counterscarps, sluices, dams, rights of 



SALE OF DUNKIRK. 255 

sovereignty, and annexed dependenci©«fshall be put into tlie 
hands of his most Christian Majesty, within fifteen days, or 
sooner if it can be done. 

With all the brick, lime, stone, and building materials now 
upon the place ; and all the artillery and ammunition, ac- 
cording to an inventory already taken by the King of Great 
Britain. 

Should the magazines be found defective, all such defalca- 
tions from the said inventory to be made good by the King 
of Grreat Britain at a valuation made by mutually appointed 
merchants. 

At the same time, the fort of Mardyke, the wooden fort, 
the great and small forts between Dunkirk and Bergh St. 
Winnox, with all their arms, artillery, and ammunition, shall 
be put into the hands of the most Christian King. 

The said bargain and sale is made in consideration of the 
sum of five millions of livres, according to the computation 
and value of French money and the present currency thereof, 
namely, a silver crown at sixty sols. Of which sum two 
millions of livres shall be paid down in the said place, at the 
same time that it shall be put into the hands of his most 
Christian Majesty or his commissioners. The said two 
millions shall be carried and put on board the ships which the 
said King of Grreat Britain shall send into the havens of the 
said place for that purpose; and those ships shall have liberty 
when they think fit, to go out of it. And the other three 
millions remaining shall be paid in the two years following, 
namely, fifteen hundred thousand livres, each year, at four 
payments every three months ; — the three first to be of four 
hundred thousand livres each, and the last of three himdred 
thousand, — making up in the whole the said three millions in 
the space of the said two years. Which payments in the said 
two years shall be made in the town of Dunkirk, to those v/ho 
shall be empowered to receive it by the King of Grreat Britain. 
And sufficient security shall be given at London for the due 
and faithful performance of the same. The said payments 
of the five millions shall be all made in silver money, as cur- 
cent in France at the time of the present Treaty, reckoning 
sixty sols Tonvnay to a crown. And in case it should come 
to pass that his most Christian Majesty should hereafter raise 
the price of his moneys, it is agreed that that shall have no 
influence upon the payments stipulated in this Treaty. 

The King of Grreat Britain guarantees the possession of 
Dunkirk to the most Christian King for the space of two 
years ; so that, in case the King of Spain from whom it was 
taken by right of arms, should dispute the matter, the King 



256 CAMPAIGN IN FLANDERS. 

of Great Britain undertakes to defend it, in conjunction with 
the most Christian King, by the aid of a fleet of ships. And 
should it nevertheless he captured by the King of Spain, the 
King of Great Britain promises to assist in its recovery with 
a fleet sufficiently powerful to make him master of the sea. 

The English garrison in marching out shall commit no 
disorders ; all debts due to townsmen and contracted since 
the King of Great Britain's restoration to his own dominions, 
being paid when they march out, as the same shall be ad- 
justed between Monsieur Rutherford the governor of the 
place and the burgomaster and baillie of the town. 

And forasmuch as a townsman of Dunkirk, by name 
Gouvard, hath undertaken to build a bridge across the haven, 
with the permission of the King of Great Britain to reim- 
burse himself by levying a toll thereon, — the most Christian 
King promises that the said Gouvard shall enjoy his toll in 
the same manner as if the place had remained in the King of 
Great Britain's hands. 

English merchants and residents may retire from the place 
and carry with them all their moveable wares, except corn 
and munitions of war ; to sell which at the market price, a 
month's time will be allowed them. For the sale of immove- 
ables they shall be allowed three months, or more if neces- 
sary, — it being understood that before quitting they discharge 
all debts and securities. 

Signed and sealed at London, 27 October, 1662 ; — in the 
behalf of the French King, by the Count d'Estrades, — in the 
behalf of the English King, by the Earl of Clarendon, the 
Earl of Southampton, the Earl of Sandwich, and the Duke of 
Albemarle. [Abrid(/ed.'] 

Louis' first action on reaching Dunkirk was to bestow on 
the family of Faulconnier the distinction of hereditary 
Baillie, and to declare the city a free port. Unlimited means 
were at once placed at Yauban's command to render the 
place impregnable, thirty thousand men being engaged to 
work imremittingly by relays, ten thousand at a time. The 
town itself was greatly extended towards the south ; while 
the canals and sluices on all sides underwent a thorough re- 
organization for the purpose of scouring the harbour. Another 
important work was the construction of a new entrance from 
the ocean, already referred to at page 246. This was formed 
by two wooden jetties, piercing the Schm-ken bank, and 
running a mile out to sea ; thereby superseding the old side- 
channel entrance from Mardyke, along the shore, — in fact 
causing that channel to be soon silted up, and to become dry 
land, — and Mardyke tower as a useless appendage to be 



LOUIS XIV. IN POSSESSION. 257 

dismantled. This new entrance, garnished and flanked bv 
wooden towers mounting altogether 152 guns, could now defV 
any hostile approach from J^ngland or Holland. But a land- 
enemy had also to be kept out ; and subsequently an enormous 
•' camp refranche uniting Dunkirk with Bergh and reticulated 
with canals, was constructed upon Yauban's plans, or, shall 
we say, on the initial basis of Lockhart's scheme ? though 
Fort Oliver its main citadel must henceforth bear the title of 
!Fort Louis. 

And thus it has come to pass that Dunkirk and its harbour 
have ever since furnished French students with a school of 
hydraulic architectm^e, or, as we say in England, of civil 
engineering. Take up Belidor's ponderous work in four 
volumes, with its countless plans, sections, and details of 
aqueducts, swivel-bridges, coffre-dams, lock-gates, sluices 
quay- walls, _ pile - drivers, and other miscellaneous mill- 
work, and it will be at once seen that much of what is 
commonly accepted as the creation of modern engineers had 
reached a very fair maturity in Dunkirk a hundred and 
fifty years ago. Of course, the results of steam power have 
no place m an estimate of this kind ; and perhaps it mio-ht be 
added that Dunkirk did but share the suggestive exicr^ncies 
of other Dutch and Danish harbours on that flat shore ; still 
it was the French who, with Dunkirk to work upon, gave to 
the science of marine engineering its symmetry and artistic 
development. 

Unfortunately for England, all this science was brought 
to bear as soon as practicable to the ruin of her mercantile 
fleet. Having let the robbers loose again, we had soon to 
pay back the ransom money, a hundred times told. How 
much of that ransom money the English King actually 
pocketed, or who were his sharers in the spoil, no man may 
ever know. More hazardous still would be any conjectm-al 
estimate of the fabulous sums which Dunkirk has since cost 
this nation. Four years after the transfer, France was 
already at war with us. But Dunkirk's wars were incessant. 
And the hatred and irritation thus engendered went on in- 
creasing, until peace with the French monarch became im- 
possible without the total suppression of his beloved northern 
port. William III on ascending the English throne, carried 
with him the Dutch hatred of France, and the Duke of Marl- 
borough's career still further intensified the sentiment. Then 
came the Hanoverian connexion, brought in by the Greoro-es 
involving us in additional complications ; till lastly, the panic 
born of the French revolution induced the aristocratic and 
clerical party in England to wake up the old national 



258 CAMPAIGN IN FLANDERS. 

antag'Oiiism into wilder malignity tlian ever. Throug-liont all 
these scenes the Mcr-AIUes of Dunkirk -waved his unrelenting 
sword. 

Conjectures as to what might or might not have turned up, 
had the leading event been other than it was, are proverbially 
frivolous, except so far as they illustrate the sagacious fore- 
cast which by a contrary policy would have averted the long 
catalogue of tragedies since become historical. If the con- 
jecture be a fair one that Oliver Cromwell recognized in the 
preservation of Dunkirk, not only a mortal check to Spain 
and an open door to British commerce, but also a perennial 
gage of peace among the northern powers, certainly nothing 
that has since transpired can be shewn to falsify such pre- 
diction. All we know for certain is that in default of pos- 
sessing Dunkirk, the only alternative-guarantee of peace has 
been found in its repeated demolition as a naval arsenal. 
Let the Duke of York's tragi-comic attempt to recover the 
place in 1793 be accepted as the final attestation to the 
patriotic policy of the Protector. Gibraltar, a far more ex- 
pensive and unprofitable investment, has perpetuated Iratred 
but fostered little trade other than that of the smuggler. In 
effect, none of the reasons for holding Dunkirk can be urged 
in respect of Gribraltar. But not to travel too far afield, it 
must now suffice to sketch briefly the efforts which the English 
Government have from time to time made to neutralize the 
action of the Flanders pirate. 

In 169-i a grand assault was made on the sea-defences of 
Dunkirk by a combined fleet of sixty Dutch and English 
vessels. It began and ended in smoke. The attempt was 
renewed in the following year by a flotilla of a hundred and 
twelve vessels ; but the armed jetty, covered by a floating 
battery, effectually prevented any approach. Neither shot 
nor shell reached the city, and the assailants retired with the 
loss of one frigate and four smaller craft. These and other 
events of that date brought into notice and have since per- 
petuated the name of Jean Bai-t, the renowned rover of 
Dunkirk. His adventures fall not within our limits. His 
memory is cherished by his fellow townsmen, and his statue 
dominates their principal square, hence called " La place 
Jean Bart." But the freebooter's trade, prolific in spoil as it 
might be to the adventm-ers themselves and rich in romance 
for the gossips of Paris, was hardly compatible with national 
treaties of commerce ; and it was an unwelcome discovery, 
which the Dunkirkers were slow to learn, that union with 
France involved for all future time the loss ot their indepen- 
dence. The first serious check to their triumphs was the 




Fori BI a:iic 

18 guns 



DUNKIRK CORSAIRS AGAIN. 



269 



following clause in the Treaty of Utreclit ; — "The most 
Christian King undertakes to level the fortifications of Dan- 
kirk, to block up the port, and to demolish the sluices which 
scour the harbour, — with .this fm-ther condition, that such 
fortifications, port, and sluices, shall never be re-constructed." 
An English army v/as thereupon permitted to take possession 
of the place, and the townsfolk had to witness in silence all 
the materials of their maritime splendour levelled with the 
dust. In anticipation of their arrival, M. le Blanc the In- 
tendant of Flanders and M. le Comte de Lomond the 
governor of the town met to arrange the terms of transfer, 
when it was wisely agreed that the French garrison should 
entirely evacuate Dunkirk for the time being, and march to 
Bergh, which accordingly they did on the evening of the 19th 
Oct. Twelve English vessels of war and twenty transports 
then arrived, carrying 6722 men under Mr. Hill the tem- 
porary governor. The work of demolition commenced in 
October 1713 and was completed in the following March. 

There is a large folio print in the British Museum Library, 
engraved by D. Lockley, being a bird's eye view, supposed to 
be taken from the sea, and entitled, — "A new prospect of the 
town and port of Dunkirk, with the citadels, castles, and 
Risban, belonging to the harbour, which are demolished 
according to the articles of peace." Twelve or more large 
ships occupying the foreground represent, so the letterpress 
informs us, " the squadron canying her Majesty's forces to 
take possession of that invincible strong place." A broadside 
likewise appeared, entitled, — " Peace and Dunkirk; being an 
excellent new song upon the surrender of Dimkirk to Greneral 
Hill in 1712," attributed to Dean Swift, though not found 
among his writings. Another contemporary publication, re- 
printed in the second volume of the Harleian MisceUany, is 
an elaborate description of the then state of the town, with 
all its resoiu'ces, armaments, and public buildings — noticing, 
inter alia, an English Nuns' Cloister, an English hospital, a 
large house for the service of the Church of England, and an 
English school. The place was described as unhealthy, owing 
to the prevalence of aguish fever. The English engineers 
were now about to render it still more unhealthy by block- 
ading the channels of exit. In effect, the stagnant waters 
around the town became so mephitio that the French King 
was perfectly justified in ordering a new canal to be cut 
westward from the back of the town, to run into the sea at 
Mardyke, as she-wn in the following diagram, 




Fort BI a:i^o 

JS guns 



I>UNKlRKinl712 



Jleliisba.n ^6 Guns 

Fort de JBoan e F7spereLnc e 
30ffuos 



FoptFert 
3o guns 



2G0 CAMPAIGN IX FLANDERS. 

Line of Sea Coast. 




'ce. 



DUNKIRK. 



J^ew Canal. 



Had this new canal been constructed only to drain the 
country, It could not have been termed a violation of the 
Treaty, but as it was made navigable for war-slilps, the 
English government again interfered, and the ship canal had 
te be reduced to a mere watercourse, — a fresh instrument 
drawn up in 1717 stipulating moreover that neither harbour, 
fortification, sluices, nor basins, should In future be constructed 
at any spot within two leagues of Dunkirk or Mardyke. 
This concession indeed was not the act of Louis XIV. He 
stoutly resisted the English demand, asserting his royal right 
and royal will to ojjen fresh harboui'S in any part of his 
dominions ; but his death occurred while the affair was in 
debate, and France's consent was won tkrough the Influence 
of the Abbe Dubois. Colonel Lascelles, an English com- 
missioner, remained on the spot eight years to enforce the 
conditions, and the firmness of the Earl of Stair is also 
chronicled as a factor in the same behalf. 

The year 1720 wrought partial deliverance for the Impri- 
soned corsairs. A violent tempest shattered the barrier, con- 
sisting of rows of piles, which the English had driven across 
the harbour-mouth ; and the popidation at once proceeded to 
complete the work of the elements by damming uj) the Canal 
de Eurnes to the brim, and then sending the accumulated 
flood through the sluices. Uuays were rebuilt, and for 
merchant -ships at least the port was re-establislied and kept 
open until, on the renewal of hostilities In 1741, the people 
still further ventured to fortify the Risban, (an island-battery 
near the head of the jetty,) and to restore the " cainp- 
rc'trajichi." But " Dunkirk restored " was a tocsin of alarm 
to all the sliip-owners of Ijondon ; — here therefore we must 
make room for, 



DUNKIRK CORSAIRS AGAIN. 261 

The Sailors^ song, or Dunkirk restored. 

To the tune of, To all you ladies now at land. 

Printed hij J. Jaehson, London, 1730. 

To all you merchants now at land 

We men at sea indite ; 
But first would have you understand 

How hard it is to write. 
It may'nt be safe the truth to say ; 
If silent, — Britain we betray. 

With a f al lal la. 

Famed Dunkirk razed by our good Queen 

Our commerce to maintain, 
Is now restored ; for we have seen 

Their ships float on the main. 
Your trade requires your timely care ; 
In truth you have not much to spare. 

The slaves that cringe to Gallia's court 

Still say there is no landing ; 
As though the water in that port 

Were like their understanding. 
But Britain to her cost has found 
France is afloat, and She aground. 

The Brethren* too will pawn their ears 

That ships from out that station 
Will scour the Flemish privateers 

In friendship to our nation. 
The i^riest ^ on whom they pin their hopes 
Demands more faith than fifty Popes. 

But let him not again deceive 

By new "Mrmoire" or "Lettre"; 
Far less kin evidence receive 

Who should I'.ave razed it better. 
For he who's coming now from France 
Will tell us all was done by chance. 

Yet how this harbour was restored 

Is still a wondrous riddle ; 
The piles withdrawn, the stones upreared, 

Like Thebes, by harp and fiddle. 
What made those piles and sands retire ? 
The Orphean or Horatian lyre V 

Be it as t'will, the land complains ; 

Then Britons speak your mind. 
The dear-bought fruits of ten campaigns 

Must never be resigned. 
Speak on, true Britons, down it goes ; 
For Dunkirk's friends are Bi-itain's foes. 

With a fal lal la. 

Of the Trinity House. H The Abbe Dubois, 



262 CAMPAIGN IN FLANDERS. 

Accordingly by tlie peace of Aix la Chapelle concluded be- 
tween England, France and Holland, in 1748, the French 
government Avas again made to deliver a back-handed blow 
on its favourite but too impulsive child ; not that it was 
possible to crush the commerce of Dunkirk or to destroy its 
military character land- ward, but the interests of England 
and Holland weve supposed to require that the sea defences 
should be annihilated ; and once more a body of English 
commissioners installed themselves on the spot to see that the 
work was thoroughly done. But whether done or not, it 
mattered very little so long as national jealousies were liable 
at any moment to fui'nish a plausible excuse for re-arming. 
And so it happened now, when only five years after the peace 
of Aix la Chapelle, Louis XV. ordered every thing at Dun- 
kirk to be again placed on a war footing. A fleet of flat- 
bottomed boats under the command of Thurot was forthwith 
seen issuing out of the harbour to effect a landing on some 
part of the English coast ; and though it is true that the 
flotilla was dispersed and its Commodore slain, yet the affair 
quite sufficed to re-kindle in English breasts the vengeance 
which was destined to fall for the third time on " perfidious 
Carthage." For the third time therefore, in pursuance of the 
Treaty of Paris in 1763, English commissioners had to en- 
counter the scowling looks of an exasperated population while 
they supervised the work of destruction ; and this time they 
did it with vengeance. Not only were the batteries thrown 
into the sea, but the jetties were pierced at intervals to let in 
the sand, the main dock with its sluices was torn from the 
foundations, and the lockage of the Canal des Moeres ruined. 
Need it be added that all these precautions, vexatious and 
irritating as they were, proved but as spider's webs as soon as 
a fair occasion presented itself for sweeping them away? 
Need we be surprized that when such an occasion arose out of 
the American war of independence, the Dunkirk corsairs were 
again sweeping the narrow seas, or that their annals, from 
1778 to 1782 inclusive, record the captm-e of eleven hundred 
and eighty seven English vessels, estimated (including ransom 
money) at more than thirty eight million livres ? " Corsairs " 
in fact was a term of their own adoption, and " la haine des 
Anglais " was accepted as the inalienable heritage of five 
centuries. Clearly, Dunkirlc Avas irrepressible. And this 
brings us to the final affair of 1793, when the Duke of York 
at the head of a large force, the Frencli say 30,000 men, sat 
down before the city, between the sea-coast and the Canal de 
Furnes, at a sj)ot where 135 years previously another Duke 
of York had met with similar disaster, though he proved 



lockhart's second embassy. 263 

himself a better soldier. For eighteen days the invaders re- 
mained inactive. Not so the besieged, who from 4000 fighting 
men had become reinforced to 10,000, and found themselves 
well able to repel the feeble assaidt which was at last delivered 
on the 8th of (September. The night following, the news of 
the French victory at Hondschoote induced the Duke of York 
to retreat precipitately, leaving behind all his artillery and 
munitions. And here ends the military history of Dunkirk. 
So much for the profit and loss account of King Charles II's 
famous bargain. 

Lochhart^s second Enibass!/. 

We left Sir William, at the time of the Eestoration, not 
exactly in disgrace, yet in some perplexity as to the amount 
of court favour which so prominent an antagonist had any 
reason to expect. The general estimate of his worth very 
soon made it felt that he might safely present himself at 
court and go through the formality of kissing the King's 
hand. On that occasion, the diplomatic address, in which 
long practice had made him a proficient, was successfully put 
in exercise to mollify the royal displeasm-e ; but as a prudent 
man he went farther than this ; he took care to entrench his 
position by soliciting and obtaining an Act of oblivion for all 
his late actions in England, France, and Spain ; and this 
again was a stepping stone to the recovery of a large portion 
of the arrearages of his outlays in France. The restored 
Grovernment would not of course recognize anything owing 
to him as Cromwell's nominee, but they were willing to listen 
to his claims dating from the hour when the " Secluded 
Members" were restored to Parliament. Accordingly, we 
meet with the following entry in the Commons' Journals, 29 
Dec. 1660. — " Sir Thomas Clarges reports from the Com- 
mittee of Army and Navy debts, that upon examination of 
the accounts of Colonel William Lockhart in respect of Dun- 
kirk, it appears that there is due to him from 16 February, 
which was the time of the restitution of the secluded 
members to 1 June, when he left Dunkirk, the sum of 
£7,357 5s. 8d." 

But a hitch arose in respect of some part of the royal 
furniture, which having been sold in France, Lockhart was 
called to account for it by Sir Grilbert Tal]:)ot the master of 
the jewel-house. This drew from him two petitions to the 
CroAvn, the more copious one being as follows. — " SJicwing, 
That about the year 1657 your petitioner being most unhap- 
pily sent into France, which he can never mention without 



2G4 CAMPAIGN IN FJ.ANDERS. 

great confusion and remorse, llicre was appointed for liim by 
the powers then usurped, towards the charge of that negotia- 
tion, a suite of hangings bearing the particular arms of 
Cromwell, and a parcel of plate bearing the arms of the 
usurped Commonwealth ; which afterwards by direction of 
the same usurped powers, was disposed of in France for 
occasions relating to that negotiation. That upon the happy 
retm^n of your Majesty, your petitioner being questioned fur 
the said plate and hangings, did humbly addi'ess himself to 
your Majesty by the Duke of Albemarle ; and then your 
Majesty from your royal grace and bounty, and in com- 
passion to the great arrears and debts your petitioner lay 
under upon the account of that unhappy negotiation and 
Dunkirk, was pleased to give your direction that yom' peti- 
tioner should not be further troubled. And now your 
petitioner being again brought in question for the same par- 
ticulars, he doth most liumtily pray that your Majesty will 
be graciously pleased to grant your royal discharge of the 
aforesaid plate and hangings to your petitioner in such man- 
ner and form as yom- Majesty shall think fitting. 

William Lockiiart." 

The language of this instrument, it were vain to deny, 
presents a very ignominious come-down from the chivalric 
status which oui- friend has hitherto occupied. But when a 
a whole nation is rushing in one direction, how few are the 
Abdiels who can stand erect " faithful among the faithless." 
We are hardly capable in these days of realizing the furor 
with which restored royalism swept down all the actors and 
all the machinery of the previous drama. On the members 
of Cromwell's house in particular, none would have been 
surprized to witness the descent of a deluge of special wrath ; 
and as, in this respect, Lockhart was every way imi^licated, 
it is impossible to doubt that a tender solicitude for his wife 
and her relations was a principal motive leading him to bend 
before the storm. Let us not therefore read his petition as 
an unique document, but accept it as one of the many 
examples which that trying horn- brought forth, of conscious 
integrity daimted and drowned in the voice of blasphtmy. 

This affair being terminated, though in what manner it 
might not be safe to say, he made trial for a short time of 
Scotland, there to be known, so we may presume, as plain 
Colonel Lockhart, despoiled for the nonce of the knightly 
degree which the Protector's sword had whilome invested 
him withal. But the tyranny of the now triumphant party 
rendered residence in the old country intolerable, and re- 



lockhakt's second embassy. 265 

turning into Huntingdonshire among his wife's kinsfolk, he 
remained there in comparative tranquillity until his name 
became mixed up with one of the many sham plots of Charles 
II 's reign. It is true he very soon extricated himself from it ; 
for his jDrincipal accuser, on giving evidence before the 
Council, described Sir William (whom he had never seen) as 
low in statm-e and of swarthy complexion, — the exact oppo- 
site of the fact. Still, he was very restless under a sense of 
being a susjiected man ; and it was with a view to throw off 
this imputation rather than from any ambitious impulse, that 
after eleven years of political inaction, he once more con- 
sented to become the English resident at the com't of France. 
But rightly to estimate his altered position, those eleven 
years must be briefly reviewed. 

Though the French King by the Treaty of the Pyrenees 
in 1659 gave back to Spain a few towns in the neighbourhood 
of Dunkii'k, he was left in possession of much territory that 
he had acquired by the aid of the English, not only in 
Flanders but in Luxembm^gh, such as Bom-bourg, St. Yenant, 
Gravelines, Montmedy, and their dependencies. Further 
conquests in that direction he well knew might receive a fatal 
check from a hostile power entrenched at Dunkirk. There- 
fore, as the main object of his life was to wrest those eastern 
provinces from Spain, the first and most indispensable pre- 
liminary was to remove at any cost this hateful obstruction. 
How he accomplished this has already been narrated. The 
next step was to foment and cherish discord between England 
and the States of Holland, and here also he was successful. 
France sided with the States, and in a very short time 
England w^as humbled in the dust. The Dutch swept the 
Straits, sailed up the Thames, took Sheerness, and burnt 
the English fleet at Chatham, — the ignominious scene closing 
with the hastily contrived peace of Breda. 

And now the French King proceeded to put his darling 
scheme into execution. Fortress after fortress fell before his 
armies, till Brussels itself was in danger, and the splendid 
province of the county of Burgundy otherwise known as 
Franche-Comte became his easy prey. Of course it was in 
violation of the Treaty of the Pja-enees with Spain, but the 
King of France throughout his life laughed at treaties, and 
only entered into them for the pm^pose of inducing his foes to 
disband and leave him a clear field for the next campaign. 
But this last inroad roused the general fears of northern 
Europe, and gave birth to the justly famed compact known 
in history as the Triple Alliance. This was a concordat 
framed between England, Holland, and Sweden, with the 



266 CAMPAIGN IN FLANDERS. 

one design of stopping tlie conquests of France ; and its 
popularity was at once sccui'ed. The King of England and 
his Ministers might be content to purchase the power of mis- 
rule at home by abandoning not only Flanders but all Eiu-ope 
to French rapacity, but the nation itself was re-awaking to 
its true interests, and " discerning men," says Lord Macaulay, 
"considered it as a good omen for the English constitution and 
the reformed religion that the government had [at last] 
attached itself to Holland." That nation indeed was destined to 
bring a still greater deliverance to England, but as yet English- 
men were not ready to receive it. They required to be drugged 
with Stuartism for twenty years longer before they should 
discover the dastardly character of their self-imposed slavery. 

The Triple Alliance, it has been often said, was almost the 
only good measure signalizing the reign of Charles II. It 
at once recovered for England the position she had held in 
the days of Elizabeth and Oliver, and it enabled the con- 
federate powers, even without the possession of Dunkirk, to 
WTCst Franche-Comte from the French King at the ensuing 
Treaty of Aix la Chapelle. 

But though the court of Charles II. had for a moment 
adopted a patriotic policy, " his heart had always been with 
France, and France employed every means of seduction to 
Im^e him back." The Triple Alliance ran out its tether in 
1671, and a most wicked scheme to rain ruin on their un- 
offending neighbours the Dutch came to light when France 
and England, without a shadow of fair pretence, simul- 
taneously made w^ar on the shipping and on the territory of 
the States. Holland was brought to the very brink of de- 
struction. Franche-Comte w^as speedily recaptured and 
annexed to the French crown, while on the English merchants 
a fearful retribution descended in the loss of shipping roughly 
estimated at a million sterling, captured by the corsairs of 
their own dear allies the French, who seized everything they 
could overhaul, under the pretence that it was Dutch craft 
sailing under English colours. Two years later and Stras- 
boiu'g also was taken by treachery, and remained part of 
France till it w^as restored to its rightfid owners in the Franco- 
Grerman war of 1870. The above sketch embraces only the 
commencement of those desolations which the long reign of 
Louis XIV. pom'ed on the nations of Europe, but it is enough 
for our present purpose. The enemies of Cromwell have 
often charged him wdth being a principal agent in advancing 
the power of France. How much more tmly might it be 
urged that (^^'harles II's sale of Dimkii'k removed the main 
obstacle to that advance. 



lockhart's second embassy. 267 

It was just wlien tlie above plot against tlie brave Dutch 
was batching, that the proposal arose to send Lockhart once 
more to the French Court. His tried skill as a minister of 
commerce secured the suffrages of the English shipmasters, 
and his cliaracter constituted a plausible guarantee for 
alliance upon honourable grounds. He accepted the office, 
but was entrusted only with very superficial duties, and 
Bishop Burnet who saw a copy of his instructions says that 
the worst features of the underplot were concealed from him. 
His entrance into Paris was one of great magnificence, but 
how altered were the moral aspects of his mission. Never 
again might he utter the word of command in Dunkirk. 
That feverish dream had passed away for ever ; and in ex- 
change he had to listen, with what nonchalance he could 
assume, to the daily reports of captin-ed merchantmen 
crowding the very harbour where he had once planted the 
Protector's flag. His old ally too, the Cardinal, had quitted 
the scene, — shall we not call him " his honoro-able friend ?" 
Lockhart must have felt that some of the most romantic and 
stirring passages of his own warfare were linked with memo- 
ries of Mazarin ; whereas now he stood all alone among the 
courtiers of France who never allowed him to forget that he 
had exchanged the service of a conqueror for that of a vassal. 
It could not long escape his penetration that the secret 
understanding between the two courts had for its object, on 
the English side of the channel, the re-establishment of papal 
despotism. What manly heart then could avoid the deepest 
sense of humiliation in having to play a part in public trans- 
actions which were in direct antagonism to the aspirations of 
his countrymen and a practical eclipse of his former better 
self ? Even his action in behalf of the merchants was again 
and again paralyzed by this baleful influence. Of the vast 
amount of shipping which his biographer records as lost to 
England during this war, through Dunkii'kers and other 
corsairs, he appears to have been successful in rescuing one 
ship, and this only after infinite pains and discom^agement 
from his royal master. Thus, every service on which he was 
put seemed calculated to crush and mortify him. He steeled 
himself against it all by a resolute determination to discharge 
his duty, how harassing soever it might prove ; but the effort 
broke his heart. 

Time was when he had held in lofty defiance the Duke of 
York's religion. Now, the catholic Duke required his aid in 
a tentative matrimonial uegociation with the Duke de Crequi's 
daughter. Moreover, he was compelled not only to give a 
silent assent, but on one occasion to lend his personal support 



268 CAMPAIGN IN FLANDERS. 

to France's aggressive action against the Emperor's dominions. 
This was when the youtliful Duke of Monmouth (Charles 
II. 's natm'al son) arrived at the Frenoli camp, with a request 
from the English King that Sir William would give the 
young soldier the benefit of his military experience. At the 
siege of Maestricht the English contingent imder Monmouth 
suffered a repulse wliile attempting to storm ; whereupon 
Loekhart riding up to the Duke, told him it was not to be 
thought of that the King of Grreat Britain's son should be 
thus foiled, and rallying the troops to a second charge, he 
led the colmnn in person and carried the breach. 

During this siege, we are informed that he manifested his 
habitual equanimity by drawing up the document which dis- 
posed of his worldly affairs, " its devotional language 
furnishing abimdant evidence that amidst the bustle of camps 
and courts he kept up an high intercouse with Heaven." 
This was in 1673. The next year his father Sir James Lock- 
hart died ; and two years later was the period of his own 
decease, just when a patent was making out to create him a 
Peer. One account of his death describes it as taking place 
at the Hague. Another report attributes the catastrophe to 
a pair of poisoned gloves. What the Scriptures term " the 
poison of asps " may in all likelihood have accelerated his 
death ; and Bishop Bm-net's testimony would lead to the 
conclusion that vexation, regret, and wounded pride, on re- 
alizing the false position in which he was placed, had much 
more to do with his premature decay than poisoned gloves. 

" I have ever looked upon him " the good bishop fin-ther 
remarks, " as the greatest man that his coimtry [Scotland] 
produced in this age, next to Sh Kobert Mm'ray." Had Sir 
William's public career closed with the Restoration, possibly 
the bishop might have placed him on an equality with his 
other friend. The scenes through which we have tracked 
him in the present narrative constitute a sufficient warrant 
for saying that the Cromwellian episode benignantly over- 
shadows, though it cannot entirely efface, his subsecjuent 
submission to the com-t of Comus. That court we know he 
utterly nauseated, though he deemed it his duty to serve them 
in the common interest ; and with every drawback on this 
score, his memory will ever remain one of the most fi-agrant 
in the history of his times. The serene figure of " Mr. Am- 
bassador Loekhart " towers far above the mere corn-tier ; and 
whether he and his kindred liked it or not, they must liave 
been well aware that the blazon of merit gathering round his 
posthumous name would be found in graceful and abiding- 
association with the master spirit of the age. 



lockhart's second embassy. 269 

His protestantism, let it be freely admitted, was from first 
to last his own, nor did it shine the less brightly that, during- 
his second embassy, he had to maintain it single-handed. It 
won for him the undisguised hatred of Louis XIV., for which 
indeed he little cared ; but as for pleading it in behalf of the 
persecuted and martyred, as in former days, he well knew 
that, unsustained by home influences, it was a factor which 
the papal party could now afford to treat with utter scorn. 
Bishop Burnet adds the following anecdote of his friend. 

One of the ambassador's French domestics having expressed 
a desu'e, when at the point of death, to receive the viaticum, 
the manipulators of the rite were advancing towards his 
house, not in a private manner, but with that demonstrative 
parade of their office which was so offensive to Lockhart, who 
thereupon ordered his gates to be shut. The pious canaille 
of Paris, long duped by the priests, were preparing to force 
an entrance, which Sir William met by ordering his house- 
hold to stand' to their arms ; but well aware how his conduct 
would be resented at court, he took the initiative by driving 
thither at once and claiming reparation for a national insult. 
But Louis was unappeasable. His Grod, he said, had never 
before received such an affront during his reign, and he 
would take care for the future that none of his catholic subjects 
took service under the English ambassador. Again Lockhart 
was resolved to anticipate the enemy. So driving back to 
Paris, he gave instant orders that all the French servants in 
his establishment should be paid off. 

One of his latest actions was to send a message of con- 
dolence to his old antagonist the Earl of Clarendon, — Claren- 
don, who had done his utmost to checkmate the Cromwellian 
policy by instigating the sale of Dunkirk, now in his tm-n, 
deposed from power and cast out of his native country as an 
abhorred thing, execrated by all parties at home and exiled 
in France. The fallen minister gratefully acknowledged 
Lockhart's com'tesy, and in a letter dated from Moulins, 19 
April 1674, says in conclusion, — "In a hand at best illegible, 
and now shaking through much weakness, I assure you that 
I have a very just sense of your kindness to a man so totally 
forgotten in the world, and that I shall never forget it." 

His body was carried to Leith, and after lying in state for 
some time in the parish church, was finally consigned to the 
family vault at Lanark. His widow, Eobiua Sewster, who 
survived him perhaps about ten years, and for whom he 
cherished the devoutest esteem, was appointed guardian over 
his chilcben and sole executrix. By her descendants she was 
equally venerated, and the name of Robina has been re- 



270 CAMPAIGN IN FLANDERS. 

peatedly revived do^vn to the present generation. One of 
her bequests was "a service of dressing plate for the toilet," 
being a gift, which in her days of prosperity she had received 
from Louis XIY. It descended to Lady Miller who died in 
1817, God. Mag. 

It has already been stated tliat Sir William by his first 
marriage left one son, James, wlio died unmarried at the age 
of twenty. By his second wife, Robina Sewster, he had seven 
sons and three daughters, namely, 

I. Cromweli-, his heir. 

II. Julius, named after Cardinal Mazarin ; fell at Tangier, 
unmarried. 

III. Richard, who succeeded his brother. 

IV. William, died unmarried. 

V. George, died unmarried. 

VI. John, a captain of dragoons, died in 1707, having 
married Elizabeth daughter of Sir Thomas Scott of Scotshall 
in Kent, by whom he had an only child, Robina, married to 
Edward Alston, professor of botany in Edinburgh University, 

whose only child, another Robina, became the wife of 

Birnie Esq, of Broomhill in Lanarkshire. 

VII. James, who succeeded his brothers. 

VIII. Robina, married to Archibald Douglas, Earl of 
Forfar, whose only son, fighting on tlie royal side at Sherrif- 
muir in 1715 received a fatal wound of which he languished 
and died in the course of a month. 

IX. Martha, maid of honom- to Queen Mary II., resided 
in the palace of Somerset House, and was executrix to her 
brother James's will. 

X. Elizabeth, died young and unmarried. 

On the death, s.p., of James, son by the first marriage of 
Sir William Lockhart the ambassador, the succession fell to 

Cromwell Lockhart, who married, first, Anne daughter 
of Sir Daniel Harvey and niece to the Duke of Montague, — 
and, secondly, Martha sole daughter and heu-ess of his uncle 
Su' John Lockhart of Castle-hill, who, siu'viving him, re- 
married Sii' John Sinclair of Stevenson, by whom she had 
issue, and the estate of Castle-hill descended to a younger 
branch of the Sinclair family, taking the name of Lockhart. 
Cromwell Lockhart dying, s.p., was succeeded as Laird of 
Lee by his brother, 

Richard Lockhart, who left no issue by Jean daughter 
of Sir Patrick Houston. The next in descent therefore 
was the seventh and youngest of the ambassador's sons, 

James Lockhart, M.P. for Lanarkshire in the fii-st par- 
liament of George I. By his wife Dorothy, daughter and 



lockhart's descendants. 271 

co-heir of Sir "William Luclian of Walthara Abbey, be bad 
four sons and tbree daugbters, all of wbom died young 
except Anne (of wbom presently) and one son, Jobn. Mr. 
James Lockbart died in 1718, and was succeeded by bis 
only son and beir, 

John Lockhart, wbo married, first, Jean, daughter and 
sole beiress of Eobert Alexander of Blaokbouse in Ayrshire ; 
and, secondly, Mary, eldest daughter of John Porterfield, 
of Falwood in Renfrewshire ; but leaving no child by either, 
the Lee estates descended at his death in 1775 to the heir 
of Sir George Lockhart, a younger brother of the ambas- 
sador. The personal representation of the elder branch has 
however still to be carried on in the lady just mentioned, 
namely, Anne, sister to the last inheritor. 

Anne Lockhart, only siuwiving daughter of James Lock- 
hart, and grand-daughter of the ambassador, married, about 
1740, Jobn Pollok of Balgray, third son of Sir Eobert Pollok, 
bart. John Pollok, who was an officer in the army, fell at 
Fontenoy in 1743, leaving an only child, to wbom again had 
been given the honoured name of Pobina, and who eventually 
inherited the estates of her grandfather Sir Robert Pollok 
aforesaid. She then married Sir Hew Crawfurd of Jordan- 
bill, in whom were now combined the families of Pollok of 
Pollok and Crawfurd of Kilhirnie and Jovdan-hUl 

Sir Hevs^ Craavfurd, by his marriage with Lady Robina, 
about 1765, bad two sons and three daughters, viz. 

I. Robert, his beir. 

II. Hew, a captain in the army, who died 1831, 
having married Jane daughter of William Johnstone 
Esq. of Headfort, co. Leitrim, by wbom he had issue, 
— 1, Hew, the fourth baronet. — 2, Robert, died 1849. 
— 3, Jane. — 4, Mary. — 5, Anne. 

III. Mary, wife of Colonel John Hamilton of Bar- 
dowie, died s.p., 1842. 

lY. Robina-Lockhart, died unm. 1837. 
Y. Luchen, married Greneral Jobn Grordon of Pit- 
lurg, and died in 1850, leaving issue. 
Sir Hew died in 1794, and was succeeded in the baronetcy 
of Kilbirnie by his son. 

Sir Robert Crawfurd, who on succeeding to the estate 
of Pollok at the death of Lady Robina Pollok in 1820, as- 
sumed the name of Pollok in terms of the settlement of that 
estate. _ He died without issue in 1845, and was succeeded 
in bis title and estates by bis nephew. 

Sir Hew Crawfurd Pollok, born 1794, married in 1839 
Elizabeth-Oswald, daughter of Matthew Dunlop Esq. and 



272 



CAMrAIGN IN FLANDERS. 



liad issue, — How, born 1843, — and Jane, married in 18G7 to 
William Ferguson Esq. Sir Hew died in 1867, and was 
succeeded by liis son, 

Sir Hew Crawfurd Pollok, tlie fifth baronet, captain of 
the lienfrew militia, born 18-13, married 1871 to Annie- 
Elizabeth Grreen of Hull. 




How much of Sir William Lockhart's handiwork survives 
in the plan of the fortress hero given, a mile south of Dun- 
kii-k, which under the name of Fort-Louis was afterwards 
demolished by the English in accordance with the Treaty of 
Utrecht, it might be difficult to specif3\ i\.nd it is proper to 
add, that the description of Sir William's structure as " a five- 
bastion work," given at page 243, rests onlj^ on the assumed 
ground that his ideas initiated the form which the Frenjh 
enjjineers carried out in 1676. 



OLIVER (llOMWETJ;. 



LETTERS AND ANECDOTES. 



Here follow a series of papers bearing the signature of 
Oliver Cromwell, unnoticed in the Carlyle Collection of 
Letters and Speeches. On the Protector's elevation to the 
supreme power, documents issued in his name would more 
or less undergo a transition from personal letters to in- 
struments of government. This was probably the reason 
which induced Mr. Carlyle to omit so many of them ; for 
unless the line were dra^vn somewhere, there seems no ap- 
parent reason why all the Proclamations preserved in the 
Gruildhall library and elsewhere might not be included. The 
following therefore must be accepted as no more than a farther 
contribution of various expressions of his mind and will, — or 
rather as an index for the use of any one who may have suf- 
ficient stomach to go through the process of reciting them in 
extenso. Those marked " Mi If on " are from Latin originals. 
Some also from Tlmrloe were in Latin. 

I. To Captain Vernon. — I desire you to pay this bearer 
John Barton my servant the money according to this warrant 
from his Excellency [Earl of Essex] due to me and my troop. 
And I shall rest — Your loving friend, Oliver Cromwell 
—17 Dec. 1G42. Then follows Barton's receipt for £204 las. 
In tlte poHsesHion of JoJin Webder of Aberdeen. See Notes and 
Queries, 12 Oct. 1861, where it is stated that this money was 
half a mouth's pay of Oliver's troop of eighty harquebusiers ; 
shewing incidentally that ^vlien he fought at Edgehill, it 
must have been as a captain of foot, and that he did not 
change into the horse or into colonelcy till after December 
1642. This however is contrary to Milton's statement in the 
Defence of the pcfjple ef E)igland. It is also opposed to Oliver's 
own words, as reported by Peck, on the first proposal that he 
should assmne the kingship. — "I was a person," says he, 
" that from my first employment was suddenly preferred and 
lifted up from lesser trusts to greater. From my first being- 
captain of a troop of horse I did labour as well as I could to 
discharge my trust, and Grod blessed me as it pleased Him." 
Possibly the letter belongs to Oliver Cromwell, junior. ? 

'1' 



274 I.K'ITKKS OF 

II. To Thomas Jonner, one of the sequestrators for com- 
pounding with delinquents, sitting at Goldsmith's Hall. — In 
behalf of Thomas Lord Cromwell, baron of Owclcham, who 
desired to re-adjust some ]tartioulars in the schedule of his 
estates in Staffordshire, Derbyshire, Cheshire, and AViltshire. 
29 Oct. 1G46. CoNiposifioii paper,"!. 

Now that active hostilities had ceased, and the sequestrators 
were driving their mill at Goldsmith's Hall, claimants and 
suft'erers on various accounts, whether friend or foe, all seem 
to have looked towards (^romwell as the general saviour, as 
the one person avIio would get justice done for them if possible. 
One whom ho bc^fricndcd was the catholic peer Henry Lord 
Arundel of Wardour in AVilts. There is a long letter in his 
behalf among the Composition Papers, urging the adjustment 
of his long delayed suit ; and doubtless when these papers 
come to be more systematically catalogucnl, many other Crom- 
wellian facts and letters will crop up. There seems to have 
been something like personal regard for this lord. John 
Aubrey the Wiltshire antiquary reports a conversation on 
husbancby which took place at Hampton Cotu-t, when Lord 
Arundel Avas dining with the Protector not long before his 
death. Lady Chandos once presented a j)etition to Oliver, 
on her knees, in behalf of her husbaud who together with 
Lord Arundel of Wardour was to be tried on the for iwing 
day. This was in 1653 when so many were anticipating his 
assumption of the supremo power. With the tenderness towards 
women which he habitually manifested, he courteously re- 
buked her for exaggerating his supposed influence. With 
the above letter to Jenner may suitably be associated the 
following. 

III. To Sir Henry Vane, juu. — liecommending to his 
notice a petition from Sir John Mouson, the delay of whose 
settlement was a violation of the public faith. Dated from 
Copi)erspath in Scotland, 26 July, 1650. Notes and Queries. 
Sir John Monson had been one of the royalist commissioners 
for the surrender of Oxford, and came in upon the articles of 
that treaty in 1646; yet owing to the Attorney-general's 
delay in making report, his composition Avas not fixed till 
July 1652. 

IV. To Colonel Thomas Barwis. — Ordering him to repair 
to Carlisle and take command of the regiment of horse lately 
raised in Westmoreland, and to act imder the orders of Sir 
Arthur Ilazelrig. Dated at Bernard Castle, 25 Oct. 1648. 
In the possession of Mr. II. W. Field formerlij of the Mint. 



OLIVER f'KOMWEIJ,. 275 

V. For the letter to his wife in 1649 in the matter of 
Buret's relations in France, see a subsequent page. 

VI. A letter to the Speaker, dated from Edinburgh, 28 
Dec. 1650, in behalf of Dorcas, widow of Colonel John 
Mauliveror, occasioned considerable colloquy and a division 
in the House. Sir Thomas Mauliverer, the baronet of the 
family, signed the warrant for the King's death. 

VII. Ilis trooj)s being robbed and mui'dered in the villages 
between Edinburgh and North Berwick, he issued a Declara- 
tion 5 Nov. 1650, threatening death and confiscation to those 
convicted. Dated from his head-quaiicjrs in Edinburgh. 
llecited ill fttU in C((n'iiKjto)i''ii Life of the Protector. 

VIII. To Sir John Wollaston and the other treasm-ers at 
war. — Desires them to pay to Mr. William Clarke one 
thousand pounds out of the money remaining in their hands 
for payment of the forces under his [Cromwell's] command 
in Scotland, o Feb. 1651. Then follows Clarke's receij)t. 
South African public lihrarij, Cape Town. 

IX. To his daughter Elizabeth Claypoole. — Eejoices at 
the conversion of Nathan and others in Lincolnshire, and 
ho])es her influenco will kficp them steady. Dated from 
Edinburgh, July 1651. 

X. To the same. — Affectionate messages " from her loving 
father." Suspects there is but little sympathy for him among 
some of the members of her cousin Nat's house. Asks if she 
intends to take Nat's babe into Northamptonshire with her. 
Easter eve, 1651, 

XL To Nathaniel Dickenson of Claypoole in Lincoln- 
shire. — A Commission constituting him lieutenant in Eobert 
Swallow's troop of horse in colonel John Claypoole's regi- 
ment, 20 July 1651. "Nathan" and "Nat" in the two 
letters to his daughter point to this Nathaniel Dickenson, 
recently serving in the royal army in Scotland ; but having, 
together with sundry associates, been captured in that 
country, and clearly discovering their own cause to be lost, 
they now sought and obtained, through Elizabeth Claypoole's 
interest, permission to hold conmussions in her father's army. 
Nathaniel was the ancestor of William Dickenson in whose 
History of Newark the above three documents were first 
printed. The family had at one time many other Crom- 



270 i.r/nKKs oi- 

wellian inemorials, traceable to the fact that Nathaniel 
married Eli/aLctli daughter of Jolm Claypoole of Nor- 
borougli [tlie husband of Elizabeth Cromwell] though appa- 
rently by his second marriage. — JS^otes and Qucru^.s, 20 Feb. 
180i). 

XI.* To the Justices of the peace for the county of Wilts. 
— As Lord General of the forces recently serving in Ireland, 
he certifies the facts contained in the petition of Mary widow 
of William I^mxlen of Corsham in the said county, captain 
in his o^^'n regiment of horse ; and desires the Justices to 
allow her and her children a competent pension in accordance 
with the late Act. 2-i August, 1652. Captain Burden is 
described in an endorsement to the petition by the parson of 
Biddestone as " a man of much piety valour and faithful- 
ness," — which tlie Lord Greneral Avas no doubt equally well 
^ aware of. Others of this family seem to have been in the 
army, for Samuel Burden of the neighbouring village of 
Lineham was one of the witnesses at the King's trial, that 
his Majesty had been seen on a battle field riding about, in 
arms against his people. 

XII. The Declaration of the naval generals, Deane, Blake, 
and Montague, in 1658, has been thought to be Oliver's com- 
position. Life of Admiral Dcdite hij hln deHceiiddiit John 
Bathnrd Bcane. 

XIII. To tho commissioners for propagating the gospel in 
Wales. — He informs them that the late Parliament had not 
prolonged tlie Act in their favoiu- ; but though there was no 
supreme power yet settled, he recommends them to go on 
cheerfully. Grod would bless them ; and he himself would 
render them aid till those placed in power should take further 
order. 2-3 April, 1()5'']. Con)po><ltion Ordir Booh. 

WN . To the governors of the English colonies in America. 
— AVarns them of the concealed hostility of the iJutch ; ap- 
jiarently in 1()5'3. lliiirloe, i. 722. 

XV. To the lord mayor and aldermen of London ; — in 
answer to tlicir request that he would re-summon the old 
parliament. 21 May, \()')'-\. Bodleian JAhraru. LII. l.'j. 

XVI. Directions to be ODserved at tho opening of llio 
Convention [the little parliament] summoned by him I Juh-, 
165:5. Ihld. LII. 50. 



OLIVER (;romwei.l. 277 

Xyil. To "Walter Frost, treasurer for the Council's con- 
tingencies. — A warrant to discharge all arrears due to any 
persons on the establishment before the Protectorate, amount- 
ing to £1078 12s. Id., — including payments to Secretary 
Thurloe, Mr. Jessop, Walter Frost, John Milton, Philip 
Meadows, and others. Dated at AVhitehall, 8 Feb. 1654. 
Bloneij-ino'raiit /)Oo/,:s. Q/fofcd in Darid 3Irisso>i''s Life of John 
Milfoil. 

XVIII. To Anthony Gunther, Count of Oldenburgh. — In 
acknowledgment of the embassy sent to felicitate him on 
becoming the head of the English Pepublic — and giving 
assent to the proposal that the Oldenburgh territory might 
be included in the coming Treaty with the Low Countries. 
Early in 16-34. 

The Count's rejoinder took the form of a second congratu- 
latory message brought over by his son, Count Anthony, and 
accompanied by a team of horses, [the same which upset 
Oliver's coach in Hyde Park.] The Protector's second reply 
extols the j^oung man's virtues, and notes the eminent fact 
that while all Em-ope was in arms, the province of Olden- 
biugli had enjoyed a profound peace. Thanks him also for 
the horses. Westminster, 29 June 16o4. Milton. 

XIX. To Mr. William Walker.— An order to pay £20 to 
Mr. Nicholas Lambe. Whitehall. 29 Sep. 16o4. Followed 
by Lambe's receipt. In the possession of C. H. Bingham, 
who remarks on its being the day of Oliver's accident in the 
park, and the possibility of its being a reward for Lambe's 
services on that occasion. Notes and QjicricK. 

XX. To the captains in New England. — Additional in- 
structions, — that whereas they had formerly received orders 
to capture the Manhattoes and other places from the Dutch, 
yet now that peace had been concludecl, they were to forbear. 
1 May, 16o4. T/nirloe ii. 259. 

XXI. To Charles Grustavus King of Sweden. — Congratu- 
lates him on ascending the throne of Sweden, recently 
resigned to him by Christina that daughter of Grustavus 
Aclolphus, — herself so distinguished for queenly and mas- 
culine vu'tues that many past ages had not produced her 
equal. Dated from Westminster, 4 July 1654. Mi /ton. 

XXII. To John IV. King of Portugal. On the 10 July 
1654, Don Pantaleon Saa, brother to the Portuguese am- 



278 LETTEKS OF 

bassador, was beheaded on Tower-liill for murder. On the 
same day the ambassador himself, Don Roderick Saa, left 
London with a letter from Oliver announcing the conclusion 
of a Treaty of peace between England and Portugal, highly 
commending the ambassador's action therein, and acknow- 
ledging the King of Portugal's compliments on the writer's 
assumption of power in England. Milton. 

XXIII. To Charles Grustavus, King of Sweden. As they 
had interchanged expressions of joy, so the writer must now 
be permitted to lay open his grief to his very dear friend. 
Believing that he had been advanced to his present position 
in England that he might seek the peace of Protestantism, 
he grieves to hear that the Swedes and Bremeners who recently 
fought side by side are now engaged in mutual slaughter. 
He implores the God of peace that the truce now in discussion 
at Bremen may issue in permanent amity, to which he will 
cheerfully lend his aid. Whitehall, 2G Oct. 1654. Milton. 

XXIV. To the consuls and senators of the City of Bremen. 
— Recalling their preeminent defence of the orthodox faith, 
he deplores the outbreak between them and their potent 
neighbour the Swede, and urges them not to reject any honest 
conditions of reconciliation. 26 Oct. 1654. Milton. 

XXV. To the most illustrious lord Lewis Mendez do Haro, 
nominated by Spain to recognize his protectorate, — A formal 
response, professing cordial inclinations towards that country. 
Sep. 1654. Milton. 

XXVI. To the Spanish ambassador. — Claiming in behalf 
of the heirs of Sir Peter Ricaut a debt of £23,073 due from the 
King of Spain. 3 January 1655. And the answer of Don 
Alonzo de Cardenas, ignoring the liability. Tlnirlor, III. 
75 and 113. 

XXVII. To the Helvetian body. — Announcing the ap- 
pointment of John Pell as his Commissioner to the Swiss 
Cantons. 21 Feb. 1655. TInirlop, IV. 552. 

XXVIII. To John Sparrow and the other commissioneris 
for prize goods. — A warrant to restore 30,000 royals, or pieces 
of eight, unlawfully captured from the King of Spain. 7 
Marcji, 1655. rinirhe. III. 201. 

XXIX. XXX. XXXI. To Major-general Disbrowe then 
at Devizes. — Directing him to pursue the cf^valiers (under 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 279 

Ponrucldocke) who had risen at SaUsbmy. 12 March, 1G-j.j. 
— To Colonel Philip Jones, same subject, same date. — To 
Major-general Whalley in Nottinghamshire, same subject. 
TliurJoe. 

XXXII. To the Governor of Jersey. — To execute repairs. 
13 March, 1055. Thurloc III. 231. 

XXXIII. XXXIV. Two letters to Sir Francis Russell 
and other commissioners for the Isle of Elv, to re-organize the 
militia. 14 March, 1655. Thnrhe III. 233. 

XXXV. To Baron Thorpe and Sergeant Grlynn. — Desiring 
a personal interview with them before proceeding to the trial 
of the Penruddocke conspirators. April, 1G55. TJiurloc. III. 332. 

XXXVI. To the illustrious Prince of Tarentum. — lie re- 
cognizes the affection which the Prince and his ancestors had 
always manifested towards the reformed churches, and chal- 
lenges his continued adherence to the same. For himself, the 
Protector calls Grod to witness that how high soever may have 
been the expectations which the churches formed concerning 
him, he trusts to demonstrate at least his desire not to dis- 
appoint them. Dated from "Whitehall, April, 1655. 3L7fo)i. 

XXXVII. XXXVIII. Two letters to the Council of 
Scotland ratifying the articles made by General Monk with 
the Earl of Lowdoun. May, 1655. T/iiirifM', III. 496. And 
further instructions to the Council of Scotland, apparently in 
October of the same year. 

XXXIX. To Edward Rolt. — A paper of instructions on 
his going to the SAvedish Cornet. May, 1655. Thiirloe. lUAlS. 

XL. To Immanuel Duke of Savoy and Prince of Piedmont. 
— Having heard of the Duke's edict thi'eatening his protestant 
subjects with forfeiture and death, and also of tlie miseries 
which had already overtaken those who fled over the mountains 
in the winter season, he conjiu"es him to re- confirm the pri- 
vileges granted by his predecessors to the Vaudois. The letter 
is a long and vehement appeal, with many more compli- 
mentary expressions than the Duke merited. Dated from 
Whitehall, May, 1655. 3L7tou. 

" Nor is it for nothing," says Milton, when recording tJie 
renown which Englishmen had acquired abroad, "that the 
grave and frugal Transylvanian sends out yearly from as 



280 LKTIKUS OF 

far as the mountainous borders of llussia and "beyond the 
HercjTiian ^^dldenle8s, not their youth, but their staid men, 
to learn our language and our theological arts." Areojmgitica. 
The European reputation which ( )liver liad now acquired as 
the champion of protestantism soon brouglit a sympathizing 
letter from George llagotzki the rrince of Transylvania, 
himself engaged in a constant struggle with Tm-ks on the 
south and Polish catholics on the north. His ambassador 
Constantine f^chaum arrived in London in May 1655, and 
made liis first address in a latin speech to the following eifect. 
" The lustre of your sovereign Iliglmess's glory, filling the 
world on every side, hath broken tln-ough the bars of our 
Orient, and poured itself fortli upon the remotest borders of 
Europe, even as far as the iron gates and portcullises which 
secure the piirer Christianity and the Faith, and shut them 
up together. In this so wide a portion of the world, some 
are gazing, some fearing, but all with the same spirit of 
^■eneration giving worship ; sensible as t\\Qj are that a more 
excellent gift cannot by Grod himself be bestowed upon a 
nation than a prince of holiness. All which being laid to 
heart by the most high Prince of Transylvania, who is none 
of the meanest rank among Princes, he became anxious, in 
spite of distance, to present himself, in order that he might 
behold nearer at hand what he had heard afar off, and withal 
tender his devoted service and give utterance to liis desire for 
friendship. His Highness therefore by me his interpreter 
doth congratulate your sovereign Highness in resi^ect of all 
that prosperity with which Heaven has surrounded you. May 
yoiu' sovereign Highness be blessed in nil yoiu- achievements, 
not with tlie good fortune of Augustus, which flatterers afore- 
time were wont to invoke on their Emperors, but with that 
celestial good fortune which shall consist in the advancement 
of Christendom. His Highness doth well understand that 
your sovereign Highness's designs have been habitually 
directed to no private interest, but undertaken solely with a 
view to the public good ; and he hopes they will yet advance 
and prosper to the increase of the Christian churches ; — as by 
these present letters which I am now ready to exhibit, will 
more fully appear." 

XL. To the Prince of Transylvania. — The English I'ro- 
tector acknowledges letters dated 16 Nov. 1654; — rejoices 
that God had raised up in that remote region so potent and 
renowned a minister of his ghny and providence ; and doubts 
not that the same God will illuminate them both, as to the 
best methods of co-operation in defence of the protestant 



OLIVER CROMWKI.L. 



:isi 



faith, now so wickedly assailed by word and deed. He recites 
the story of the Duke of Savoy's cruelty, and adds that he 
has expostulated both with him and with the French King. 
Whitehall, May, 1655. MlJfon* 

XLI. — XLIV. Foiu- despatches advocating the cause of 
the Piedmontese, and addressed to the following authorities, 
(all apparently in May.) To the King of the Swedes. — To 
the high and mighty lords the States of the United Pro- 
vinces. — To the Consuls and Senators of the Protestant can- 
tons and confederate cities of Switzerland. — To Frederick 11. 
King of Denmark and Norway. 2IiIton. 

A contribution on this topic by Nieuport the Dutch am- 
bassador writing home to his masters, contains incidentally 
Oliver's testimony as to the number of the victims of the 
Irish rebellion of 1641. — " His Highness having heard how 
much yoiu' High-Mightinesses were concerned at those in- 
human murders, and in what strong terms you had written 
to the Duke of Savoy concerning the same, declared that he 
was exceedingly glad to observe yom' great zeal and affection 



* In August 1879 a travelling 
correspondent supplied the Chrin- 
flan World (weekly newspaper) 
with sundry interesting details of 
modern Transylvania and its mil- 
lion and a half of inhabitants, a 
population still characterized by 
independence of thought and by 
great diversities in language, reli- 
gious faith, and costume. And 
as is the people, so is their country, 
romantic and varied, and bearing 
traces everywhere of old Roman 
occupation. The Wallachs speak 
a corrupt Latin. These are of 
the Greek church ; the German 
element adheres to Lutheranism, 
the Magyars are Calvinistic or 
Unitarian, while the Szeklers or 
mountaineers claim to possess the 
true blue blood of Attila's soldiery. 
A recent instance of their defi- 
ance of priestly rule by the golden 
youth of their capital Klausen- 
burg is thus given. A Shrove- 
tuesday ball which had long been 
held as a parting farewell to the 
gaieties of life before Lent, was 
proscribed by Bishop now Cardi- 



nal Haynald, on the ground that 
the dancers sometimes kept it up 
till daylight and then entered the 
church in their ball dresses. 
Whereupon it was resolved that 
in future the dancing should con- 
tinue all day from Shrove-tues- 
day to Ash-wednesday night ; 
and this was persisted in for 
several years till the discomfited 
bishop gave way. " TheToroczko 
villagers," he says, "are brave, 
happy, industrious and religious. 
To see them on Sundays in their 
gala dresses, the young girls all 
wearing antient gold crowns, 
thronging the deal benches of the 
ample village church (a L^nita- 
rian one, by the way, and the only 
one), is to have a glimpse into a 
little world of romance. Never 
shall I forget the mighty melody 
of their imited voices, ringing out 
clear and strong, and completely 
drowning the village organ, as 
they sang, in honest Magyar, 
Luther's noble hymn, " A sure 
stronghold is our Lord God." 



282 i,7:tter.s of 

in intercoding for those poor innocent people ; assuring mo 
that he was moved at it to his very soul, and that he was 
ready to venture his all for the protection of the protestant 
religion as well here as abroad ; and that he most readily with 
your High-Mightinesses in this cause would swim or perish ; 
trusting that the Almighty God would revenge the same ; — 
that the example of Ireland was still in fresh memory, where 
he told me that above two hundred thousand souls were mas- 
sacred." 

James Darcy a French catholic writing from London to a 
friend at Dunkirk, says, — " The slaughter of the Savoy pro- 
testants has much enraged these against us and against all 
catholics generally. For the relief of those that escaped 
martyrdom all England doth contribute, and with such de- 
votion that I dare say there are [not] less than half a million 
got in this very city ; for some give a hundred, some two 
hundred, some twenty, some forty pounds. And such is my 
lord Protector's care, that all those that contribute must be 
listed ; so that none dare refuse the clerk, who comes to 
every man's house." [listed means, have their names pub- 
lished.] 

XLV. To the Consuls and Senators of the city of Greneva. 
— Informs them that the collection for the suffering Pied- 
montese is going forward in England ; and for present supply, 
£2000 is now on the road to Greneva, which he hopes will be 
distributed with due care. 8 June, 1655. Milton. 

In the fifth volume of Thu Hoe's State papers, there are 
twenty eight pages devoted to this subject, and headed, — A 
clear and exact account of the £16,500 sterling remitted from 
England by the order of his Highness and the Council to be 
distributed among the poor distressed protestants of the 
valleys of Piedmont : — Specifying distinctly not only the 
manner of its remission with all the circumstances thereunto 
belonging, but also its actual distribution among those poor 
people ; — Together with all the original acquittances and 
other authentic papers which are in any manner for the jus- 
tification of the truth of whatsoever is therein contained. 
Collected and perfected by Samuel Morland during the time 
of his abode in Greneva in quality of his Highness's commis- 
sioner-extraordinary for the affairs of the Valleys, namely 
from the 20 — 30 November 1655 to the 21 Nov. — 1 Dec. 
1656. 

This £16,500 does not appear to include the £2000 pre- 
viously sent in June, Avliich it is believed was in great part 
Oliver's personal contribution. Morland's account bears on 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 



283 



the whole an aspect of truth and fair dealing. Of course, 
the principal sum lost somewhat by the sweating process of 
commission on exchanges and other drawbacks, but the suf- 
ferers reaped a considerable harvest, and blessed the givers. 
Nor was it only the protestantism of the Savoy valleys which 
enlisted the Protector's sympathy. In April 1658 he was 
again earnestly promoting a collection for the benefit of 
certain exiled chm^hes of Poland who had taken refuge in 
Silesia ; and also for twenty families driven from the border 
of Bohemia. Thurloe, vii. 62. 

The catalogue of the Piedmontese fund, in respect of 
places in England, not persons, is still preserved in the 
Pecord Office ; the parishes being arranged in counties and 
including those places which contribute nothing. Within 
the City of London 124 parishes occur ; and not only tliese 
but the outlying villages seem to have been very liberal. 
In the provinces (omitting fractions) Newcastle gives £602, 
—Oxford University £380,— Cambridge £120,— Bath only 
£14, — Exeter £321, nearly £6 of which is said to be " from 
the baptized church there," — Taunton £74, — Dorchester 
£147, — Portsmouth £95, — AVinchester £10, — Canterbury 
about £150, but of this sum, £53 is " from the Walloon 
congregation." Some of the amounts collected in and about 
London may conclude the survey. 



£ 

Chelsea 64 

Ohesliiint 35 

Chiswick 25 

Clapham 67 

Croydon 36 

Fulham 104 

Greenwich 60 

Hammersmith 44 

Hampstead 23 

Hampton 13 



Harrow 
Isleworth .... 
Kensington .... 
Kentish Town . 
Kingston on Thames 
Lambeth .... 



37 
33 
80 
19 
65 
94 



Lee .... 

Marybono . . 
Mortlake . . 
Norton Folgate 
Richmond . . 
Stratford le Bow 
Stepney . . , 
Tottenham High 
Twickenham 
Wanstead . 
Wapping 
West Ham . 
Westminster 
Whitechapel 
Willesdon . 



£ 
38 
2 
60 
30 
75 
50 
232 
35 
22 

m 

73 

92 
348 
110 

37 



XL VI. A letter is said to have existed in 1832 at Bowers 
Hall, Essex, addressed to the high and mighty Sultan 
Mahomet, lord of the Mussulman kingdom, sole and supreme 
monarch of the eastern empire, dated 1655, and intended 
to be delivered through Sir Thomas Bendysh, but apparently 
never sent. In the possession of Pike Burleigh Esq. of 



284 



I.KTTIIRS OF 



Haverhill. Nofa^ an<J Queries 4 M((trh 1871. Bendysh de- 
scribes his delivery of a letter to the Grand Seignior in 1056. 
See TliHi-loc, V. ibl. 

XL VII. To tlie Diianna of Algiers, directing that the 
goods of Edmund Carson late agent from the English Par- 
liament, he delivered to his sister Mrs. Bagnall. 1 June IGoo. 
Tlntrloe, HI. oOO. 

_ XL VIII. To tlie King of France. — Is glad to find that 
his own conjectures were right, that the French troops lately 
aiding the Duke of Savoy in crushing the Piedmontese, had 
acted in opposition to his Majesty's personal wishes ; and 
hopes that a safe asylum in France will not he refused to the 
IVotestant fugitives. Whitehall, 29 July IGoo. Milton. 

XLIX. To Cardinal Mazarin. — Asks him to give full credit 
to the messenger who carries the above letter to the King of 
France, and is entrusted with other negotiations. Ihid. 

L. To the town of Colchester. — Directs them to proceed to 
the election of town-officers, notwithstanding that sundiy 
petitions respecting the governance of the peace are under 
debate. 31 August, 1655, Thurhc, III. 758. 

LI. To William Ludlow. — Appointing him to the warden- 
ship of St. John's hospital at Wilton in Wilts. 1655. Add. 
mss. 17018../: 43. 

LII. To Leopold, Archduke of Austria, governor of the 
Low Countries under Philip King of Spain. — Informs him 
that Sir Charles Harbord who held goods at Bruges belonging 
to tlie Earl of Suffolk, in gage for debt, was like to lose them 
all, for that Sir Pichard Grranville an Englisli royalist had 
forcibly seized them. And prays protection ; promising that 
the rights of the Ai-chduke's subjects shall in like manner be 
respected in England. 31/ if on. 

LIIL Sundry members of the Dutch and French congre- 
gations in London, not being free of any of the City guilds, 
were molested in their trade. Oliver thereupon sent a positive 
order to the Lord Mayor to put a stop to such partialities. 
In November 1655 the Dutch and French deputies and clergy 
repaired to Whitehall to thank the Protector for his letter. 
T/iiir/oc. 



()l,n'Kl{ ( KOMWKLL. 28-J 

LIV. To the Duke of Venice. — While he always rejoices 
at victories gained over the common enemy of the Christian 
name, he has to state that the recent success of Venice against 
the Turk has wrought damage to sundry Englishmen, to wit, 
AVilliam and Daniel Williams and Edward Beale, whose ship 
the Grofd Prhice trading to the Porte, has been carried off to 
Venice. Begs him to restore it. Westminster, Dec. 160'j. 

LV. To the King of France. — Samuel Mico, William 
Cockayne, Greorge Poyner, and others, complain that their 
ship the Unicorn with a lading Avorth £'34,0U() was captui^ed 
by the French Admiral in time of peace, and the Cardinal 
and Monsieur de Bordeaux admitting the English claim, 
Oliver urges that its restitution should be the first fruits of 
the revived amity between the two nations. Dec. 1655, MtUon. 

LVI. To the King of France. — Claims the restitution of 
an Irish ship. The French governor of Belleisle in the Bay 
of Biscay not only admitted into his port one Dillon a 
piratical enemy of England, but when Capt. llobert Vessey of 
the t^'i (jilting ah fought Dillon and had him at mercy, the 
French aided the pirate's escape. 13 January 1656. TJiurloe. 

LVII. To the evangelical cities of Switzerland. — Is grieved 
to hear of their broken peace ; — counsels them to maintain 
their old character for fortitude, though in presence of the 
canton of Schwitz where protestantism is counted a capital 
crime. His solicitude in theii- behalf is as great as if the 
conflagration had broken out in the English republic. 
January, 1656. Milton. 

IjVIII- To the Justices of the county of Devonshire, — 
commenting on the care which should be exercised in selecting 
juries dming the Judges' circuits. 29 January 1656, Ex- 
hibited to the Society of Antiquaries by Dr. Komeo Elton of 
Exeter. Gent. May. Jul;/ 1855. 

LIX. To Charles Custavus, King of the Swedes. — As 
friends can neither sorrow nor rejoice alone, he hails the birth 
of the King's son at the propitious moment when the king- 
dom of Poland was wrested from papal supremacy ; — recalling 
the favourable omen that saluted Philip of Macedon when 
the tidings of Alexander's birth Avere accompanied by those 
of the conquest of Illyria. Feb, 165(5. Milton. When the 
erudite Secretary submitted the rough draft of the above to 



286 LETTERS OF 

his master's scrutiny, we may imagine Oliver replying, — 
" All very fair. Master Milton ; I am well content to sub- 
8cril)0 it, for Charles Gustaviis will no more credit me with 
the historical parallel which you have invented, than he did 
with the Sonnet to his jiredeccssor Christina, when Andi'cw 
Marvell addressed her as Ik'Uijyototn Virgo, and sent it in 
nomine Cron/ircni." 

LX. To the King of Sweden. — Sends home with many 
commendations the Swedish envoy Peter Julius Coictus 
[Coyet] who has duly accomplished the affairs of his 
embassy. Westminster, 17 April, 1G55, Milton. Oliver 
had knighted him as Sir Peter Coyet, and given him a fair 
jewel with his Highness's pictm-e, and a chain worth £400. 

LXI. To the Xing of Sweden. — A letter commendatory 
by the hand of the Swedish ambassador-extraordinary the 
Count Christiern Bundt, on the ratification of the Treaty. 
He will go back not without substantial tokens in acknow- 
ledgment of his high abilities. Westminster, July, 1657. 
These tokens took ^q form of £1200 worth of white cloth, 
his Highness's picture in a gold case of the bigness of a five 
shilling piece, encircled with diamonds, altogether worth 
£1000. The Count wore this jewel, fastened with a blue 
ribbon to his breast, so long as he was in sight, barging down 
the Tliames. 

LXil. To the King of Denmark. — The ship Saviour, 
belonging to John Freeman and Philip Travess, having been 
forfeited for evading the Elsinore tribute, through the perfidy 
of the captain to whom the owners had given money for that 
purpose, he asks for the recovery of the lading, though the 
ship be condemned. Milton. 

LXIIl. To John IV King of Portugal. — Sends back with 
sentiments of esteem and approval the lord John Ivoderigo de 
St, Meneses, Coimt of Pennaguiada, who had come over as 
ambassador-extraordinary to conclude a Treaty with England. 
Early in 1656. Milton. 

LXIV. To the high and mighty States of the United 
Provinces. — Urges the long promised restoration of the ship 
Edmund and John, taken by a Flushing privateer five years 
back. 1 April, 1656. Milton. 

LXV. To the Lord Deputy and Council of Iceland. — 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 287 

Directs that a lease of Lough Neah be made to Sir John 
Clotworthy, in recognition of the services of Sir John and of 
his father Sir Hugh Clotworthy against the rebels in those 
parts. 13 May, 1656. Thurloc, V. 10. 

LXV. LXVI. Two more demands fol' merchant ships 
detained by the French and the United Provinces. In May. 
Milton. 

LXVII. To the Generals Blake and Montague at sea. 
Directs them to send ten ships to blockade Dunkirk and 
Osteud, whose corsairs had just seized twenty English ships, 
though convoyed by a Dutchman of 36 guns. Whitehall, 

9 June, 1656. Thnrloe. The English seamen were carried 
in triumph through the various towns of Flanders, their cap- 
tors bragging tliat they had vanquished the English in a 
great sea-light. 

LXVIII. To the Lord Provost and Bailiffs of Edinburgh. 
— Urges them to pay the pension, £55, due, but lately with- 
held by reason of the troubles in Scotland, to Elizabeth Donn 
the daughter of John Heriot, founder of Heriot's hospital. 

10 June, 1656. Notca and Queries. 

LXIX. To the chief commanders in America, — having 
reference solely to Jamaica, — lamenting the want of zeal, 
and prompting to greater fortitude. 17 June, 1656. A long- 
letter thoroughly Cromwellian. T/uoioe, V. 129. 

LXX. To the States of the United Provinces. — Laments 
the growing disunion between them and Sweden. 21 August, 
1656. And the friendly answer of the States, announcing 
the return of their envoy Nieuport to England. Thnrloe, 
V. 330. 

LXXI. To the King of the Swedes. — Entreats him to bo 
at peace with the States of the United Provinces, now when 
the common enemy is conspiring to exterminate the Pro- 
testant name. If there be any thing wherein om* labour, 
fidelity, or diligence, may tend to composm-e, we offer and 
devote all to the service. August, 1656. Milton. 

LXXII— LXXV. Three letters to John IV., King of Por- 
tugal and a fourth to the Conde d'Odomira or Count Mirano. — 
Having reference to the new Treaty, and demanding inquisi- 
tion into the assassination of the English agent Philip 
Meadows. August, 1656. Thnrloe and Milton. 



2<S<S Li;Tn;i;s ok 

LXXVI. To Louis King- of l^^anoe.— The French Admiral 
Giles do la lloche liaviiig' capliu'cd the EtuJcdroiw and de- 
sjaoiled her owners of £10,000, — Oliver says, — "If piratical 
actions such as these be permitted to violate national com- 
pacts, the sanctity of treaties must fall to the ground ; all 
faith and authority of princes will grow out of date and be 
trampled imder foot, August KJoG. Milfon. 

LXXVII. To Cardinal Mazarin. — Enlarges on the above 
case of robbery, lie is addressing one whose prowess and 
prudence directing the affairs of France ought to place the 
matter quite within his reach. Ihid. 

LXXVIII. To the States of Holland.— William Cooper a 
London clergyman, claiming a revenue of £300 a year which 
he says was promised to his father in law John le Maire of 
Amsterdam for the invention of a seal [or trade-mark ?] from 
Avhicli tlie States liad derived great advantage, the Protector 
hopes his case will be honoiu'ably entertained. Sop. 1G5G. 
Ihid. 

LXXIX. To Louis King of France. — Though very un- 
willing to trouble his Majesty with the story of private wrongs 
so soon after the Treaty, he cannot shut his ears to the cries 
of his countrymen. Ivobert Brown a London merchant has 
landed a cargo of hides at Dieppe and been tricked out of his 
money, These violators of Treaties must be made examples 
of. Ihid. 

LXXX. To John IV. King of rortugal. — A letter- 
commendatorj' of Thomas Maynard, the new resident at that 
court. October 165G. Milton. A few months later, on the 
death of J(jhn IV., the Protector sent a coiu-teous salute to 
the youthful successor and to the (iueen-mother, signifying, 
in the first place, his grief at the loss of his friend and ally, 
by whom the kingdom of Portiigal had been rescued from 
the bondage and oppression of the King of Castile, and, 
secondly, congratulating the young Prince on his reputed 
heirship to his father's virtues. Turning to the (iueen- 
mother, Mr. Ambassador magnified her excellent qualities, 
and hoi)ed that tlie alliance between England and Portugal 
would be long maintained, to the benefit of the two nations 
and the damage of their respective foes. To his narrative of 
the above, forwarded to Mr. Secretary Thurloe, Maynard 
adds the story of a cowardl}' attack recently made ouEnglisli 
seamen by a mob of iJutch and Portuguese, wlio pursued the 



OLIVER CROMWELL, 289 

Eugllsli into tlio water and struck at tlieni with swords as 
they were swimming. " I beseech your Honour," says 
Maynard, " to acquaint his Highness of our many abuses ; 
who I hope will pity our condition and not sutfer us to be 
abused by a petty people, who could not have subsisted, but 
woidd have been all trampled under their enemies' feet this 
summer, if his Highness's fleet had not kept them from in- 
vasions by sea." Thur/oc. Oliver's policy in utilizing Por- 
tugal as a set-oflp against Spain was ratified in Queen Anne's 
day^ by the great Methuen Treaty of commerce, and has 
been endorsed by every subsequent English Ministry. 

LXXX. To John IV. King of Portugal.— In behalf of 
Thomas Evans, whose ship the Scipio, worth £7000 had been 
captured by the King's command. October 1656. Milfon. 

LXXXI. To the Senate of Hamburgh. — James and 
Patrick Hayes, who had been pronounced by sentence of the 
Hamburgh court the lawful heirs of their brother Alexander, 
and their cause advocated by King Charles of England, are 
nevertheless still defrauded by the great power of Albert van 
Eyzen. The claimants are now reduced to poverty ; and if 
entreaty and fair means are to avail nothing, the severity of 
retaliation must take its course. Westminster. 16 October 
16o6. Milton. 

LXXXII. To tlie King of the Swedes. — Dismisses Su- 
William Vavasoiu' back to his !\rajesty'8 service, and hints 
that the knight's pay has long been in arrear. October, 
1656. Milton. 

LXXXIII. To Lewis King of France. — Reiterates the 
prayer of last May in respect of defrauded merchants. 
November, 1656. Mi/to)). 

LXXXIV. To Frederick HI. King of Denmark. — Ac- 
knowledges letters brought by the hand of Simon de Pitkum, 
the Swedish consul : and urges friendly alliance with Sweden. 
December 1656. Mitton. 

LXXXV. To William, Landgrave of Hesse. — We would 
have answered yom* Highness' letters received nearly a year 
ago, but for our pressing affairs at home. For what could be 
more gratifying to us than messages received from a religious 
prince and the descendant of pious ancestors, having in view 
the peace of Christendom and crediting ourselves with the 

V 



290 LETTERS OF 

like object r' How far our own oiidcavours in tliat direction 
have succeeded, by cxliortations, l)y sufferings, or hy leading- 
the way, but principally by tlie Divine assistance, the greater 
part of oiu' people truly know and arc sensible of in the deep 
tranquillity of conscience [/n sumina coim-ieutiw iranquillitnlc 
.fcntiinif, a remarkable declaration.] In Germany our agent 
Dury has long wrought in the same cause. But who can 
indulge the hope that the two communions of the lleformed 
and the Augustinian confession will ever coalesce into unity? 
Force may not do it, for force cannot consist with ecclesias- 
tical tranquillity. Yet it were to be wished that they who 
differ in trifles would do so witli more civility, and continue 
to love as brethren. But God will accomplish his own work 
in his own time In the meanwhile you, most serene prince, 
will have left behind you a testimony of affection to the 
churches worthy of your ancestors and in)piring to your de- 
scendants. Marcli 1G57. Miltou. 

LXXXVI. To the Emperor of Eussia, [or tlie Grand 
Duke of Muscovy, as he was then generally styled] Alexis, 
the son and successor of Michael llomanolf. — All men know 
how anticnt is the friendship and how extensive the commerce 
between the English nation and the people of your Empire : 
but your Majesty's singular virtue outshining that of your 
ancestors, makes us encreasingly desirous to propound sundry 
views combining the good of Christendom with yom" Majesty's 
own interests ; We have therefore sent the most aeoomplislied 
Richard Bradshaw under the character of our Orator, to 
whom we beg you to grant free access to your person. April 
1657. The English merchant-ad ventm^ers, who as far back 
as Uueen Elizabeth's time had found means to establisli a 
factory at Archangel, were allowed to enjoy preference-rights 
to trade as far south as Moscow. This went on till the period 
of oiu" civil- wars ; when Culpepper and other royalists having 
poisoned the mind of the Russian sovereign against the 
English republicans, the privilege was for a short period 
withdrawn. The Lord of Bye, in behalf of the Polanders, 
was thereupon dispatched to England in 1(355 to stimulate a 
war of revenge on Russia and urge the English to take Ai'ch- 
angel into their hands. The King of I'oland took care to 
addi'ess Oliver as '^ ScreiiissiniKs Pri)icej).s" ; but it needed 
very little sagacity on the part of the English merchants to 
perceive that such a policy would only be playing into the 
hands of their French and Diitcli rivals. Besides, it had 
become known that the King of Poland liad instituted in his 
dominions a public collection in aid oi" Charles Stuart. On 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 291 

every ground there! )i e, decided Oliver, a firm friendship with 
Russia, is the true a \d righteous policy of this nation. The 
(■atholic Poles may b-* ^eft for the Protestant powers of Tran- 
sylvania and Sweden to deal withal. 

LXXXVII. TotheDiieof Courland. —Thanks him for 
forwarding the English ambassador Piohard Ijradshaw in 
his journe}^ towards Muscovy : And prays in belialf of John 
Johnson a Scots captain of one of the Duke's sliips which 
ran aground tln-ough the fault of the Duke's own pilot. 
Marcir, 1007. Milton. 

LXXXYIII. To the Consuls and Senators of Dantzic- - 
Thougli he observes (hat they are friends to the Poles ratlier 
than to the Swede,?, he asks them nevertheless to liberate the 
Swedish captain Count Coningsraark, sm^prized at sea by the 
treacherj' of his own people. April, 1()-j7. J\filfoii. 

LXXXIX. To Major-general Kelsey and Capt.nin Henrv 
Hatsell. — Mr. Jessop has made £5000 payable to them at 
Dover for the six regiments there embarking for Flanders 
under Sir John Pejmolds. 4 Maj'^, 1657. Thurloo vi. 256. 

XC. To Admiral Blake then at sea. — In.structious to send 
home defective ships, with other details ; — accompanied with 
a characteristic letter in his personal capacity, rejoicino- in 
the signal mercy experienced in the recent attack on the 
Spanish ships at Santa Cruz. He sends him a small jewel, 
and designs to acknowledge further the honesty and courao-e 
of the officers and seamen. 10 June, 1657. Thnrloe. 

XCI. To the Ijord of Bordeaux, envoy extraordinary from 
the King of France. — In belialf of Samuel Dawson and 
other London merchants, whose ship the Specdiccll had been 
cari'ied into Bordeaux and sold by auction. August, 1657 
MUfo)). 

XCII— XCYIII. To Charles Gustavus King of Sweden.— 
Sends, as envoy- extraordinary, William Jepson a colonel of 
horse and a member of our Parliament, who will reveal what 
disturbance and grief of mind the war again breakino- out 
with Denmark has occasioned among the friends of ihQ ' 
orthodox faith. August, 1657. TJiurloc VI. 478. Secret in- 
structions delivered to Jepson. Ibid. — To Frederick William 
manpiis of Brandenburgh, high chamberlain of the sacred 
Poman Empire, and a dozen other titles, — a letter commenda- 



292 LETTErvS OF 

toiy carricnl l)y tho aforesaid William Jo]-)Son. — To tlie powers 
at llaiiiljur<^li, asking iliom to give A\^illiam Jepsoii safe 
coiuluct. — To the powers at ]^>remen, a similar request. — To 
the powers at Liibcek, a similar request. — To Frederick, heir 
of Norway, Count of Oldenburg-li, a similar request. — To the 
powers at llamLurgh, a similar request in favoiu" of Philip 
Meadows going to Denmark. 

XCIX. To Admiral Montague, sailing in the ship Na^rhy. 
— Assures him he is at perfect liberty to search Flushingers 
or other Dutch ships suspected of carrying bullion and other 
goods for the Spaniard. Hampton Court. 80 August, 1657. 
TliurJoe. 

C. CI. To Ferdinand, Grand-Duke of Tuscany. — Requests 
him to arrest William Ellis an English sea-captain, who, 
being hired by the Basha of Memphis to carry a cargo to the 
Grand Seignior, escaped with it to Leghorn, thereby exposing 
the Christian name to scandal before the Turks. Sep. 1G57. 
A subsequent letter in December thanks the Grand Did^e for 
his prompt action in the affair, and jiroposes that, the Turks 
being satisfied, the Englishman and his ship may now be 
liberated, " that we may not seem to be kinder to the Turk 
than to our own countryman." 

CII. To Frederick William, Marquis of Lraudeuburgli. — 
More fully than in ihc previous letter carried by William 
Jepsou, enlarging on the Marquis's fortitude in the Protestant 
cause ; and rej oicing in his adherence to the King of SAveden. 
Sep. 1657. Milton, 

cm. CV. To the Doge and Senate of Venice.— Con- 
gratulates them on a recent victory over the Turks, and 
hopes that the exchange of prisoners may bring about the 
release of Thomas Galileur formerly master of the ship 
called the Relief, who has now for five years been a slave. 
October 1657. Milton. Shortly after, the Protector sent 
ten frigates under Admiral Stokes to protect the Mediterranean 
trade, and therewith another letter to the Doge, who made 
courteous response and expressed ilu^ belief that the alliance 
between the African corsairs and the Tmks at Constantinople 
would now be an-ested. A third message to the Venetians 
commended to their favourable protection Richard Holdipp 
an English officer now appointed Consiu of the Societj^ of 
cm- merchants trading to the Peloponnesus. 20 April, 
1658. Thurloe. VII. ^a. 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 293 

J'^}- /-^'° ^^^ ^^^^"^'^ ^f the Uuited Proviuces.— In praise 
of AVillunn Nieuport their ambassador, who is retiirniDg to 
Holland tV)r awhde, but designs to come back and resume his 
place ni tlie Eno-Hsh Court. A second letter commends 
Lreorge iJownmg as ambassador from England. November 
1657. Milton. ' 

CVII. To the Marquis of Brandenburgh.— Laying open 
the append of a sea-captain Thomas Dunn,— another case of 
mercantde spoliation. February I608. T/ito'Ioe. 

CVIII. To Cliarles Gustavus, King of Sweden.— Is glad 
to believe that the King of Denmark Avill speedily sue for 
peace, his temporary antagonism to Sweden having arisen 
uot from his own inclination but from the artifices of the 
common foe, papal Spain. 30 March, 1658. Milton. 

( 'IX. To the Council in Scotland.— Directs the barons of the 
Scottish exchequer to search and find out £600 a year of con- 
cealed estates for the i'urtherance of a Christian Jklinistry in the 
Highland language. 15 April, 1058. Masaon's Milton. V. 346. 

_CX To the evangelical cities of the Switzers. CondoloL 
with them on the continual miseries of their neighbom^s the 
I icdmontese and the broken faith of the Duke of Savoy •— 
Hopes that peace and tranquillity in England may eventually 
leave him free to employ all his forces, studies, and counsels^ 
m defence of the Church against the rage and fury of her 
enemies. May, 1658. Milton. 

CXI. CXII. To Ferdinand, Grand-Duke of Tuscany — 
Complains of another instance of fraudulent conduct towards 
two English merchants, to wit, John Hosier and Thomas 
Clutterbuck. _ April, 1058. In a second letter he says, :— 
" We are grieved to learn how your Ilighness's constant ex- 
pressions of friendship towards us have been falsified by the 
hostile treatment which om- Fleet has recently received in 
yom- port of Leghorn, out of fear, as your servants confess 
lest our enemy the King of Spain should be offended." The 
outrages are then recited, and punishment demanded on the 
governor of Leghorn. Milton. 

n W^lV^^^^^- TotheKingof Francc-Iiejoicestohear 
that his JMajesty had sat down in force before Dimkirk, and 
announces his intention of sending over Lord Fauconberg- 
See it 111 full at page U)9.— Two to the Cardinal, and a more 
personal one to the King. Ifjid. 



294 letteks ok 

CXVII. To C'aptiiiii Stokes, coiunKtudin^' in tlio^rcditor- 
riinean. — The Freiicli King- liavini;' oriLTed a rciieU'Zvous of 
fillips and niou at Toidon iu order to assail the .Spaniard our 
common foe ; you are to send thither fi\e or six of yoiu" sliips 
Avho arc to act under the French Admiral. At the same time 
the commander of the said squadron of English ships is to 
carry his own flag as at other times, and in all rcs[)eets lo 
maintain the liouour of the Protector and the Commonwealth. 
ol May, 1G58. Thurlve. 

CXIX. To the King of France. — lleturns thanks for the 
De Crcqui embassy to London, and comments on the valour 
of the English troops at the battle of the Dmies. See it at 
large at Jjagc 220. 

OXX. To Cardinal Mazarin. — Returns thanks for the 
complimentary message brought thi'ough the said embassy. 
See as above. 

CXXI. CXXII. To the King of France. — Acknowledges 
the information iliat Dunkirk had been taken and then handed 
over to the English forces. See page 221. And a final one 
to the Cardinal, same date, thanking him for the good faith 
Avhich had throughout characterized the recent transfer. 

CXXIII. To Henry (h-omwell, then in Ireland.— In behalf 
of cornet Ilichard AVhalley son of the Protector's cousin, 
colonel Edward AVhallej-. The alliance of this family was 
through the marriage of Frances daughter of Sir Henry 
Cromwell (the Protector's grandfather) to Richard Whalley 
Esq. of Nottinghamshire. Colonel Edward "Whalley the dis- 
tinguished Parliamentary officer and a reg-icide, was a son of 
that marriage ; and Richard Whalley whom this letter con- ]/■ 
cerns was the colonel's second son. There were other children, 
Init not much is known of them, except that the eldest, John, 
was a cornet of horse and sat in Richard's Parliament. A 
daughter too is known to history as Frances the wife of Major- 
general William Goffe, another of the regicides, who in com- 
panionship wdth liis father-in-law Colonel Whalley lay 
concealed for so many years in New England. As this 
message to Henry seems to he the latest private letter yet 
discovered of the Protector Oliver, it must be given entire. 

1 June, lGo8. 
Harry Cromwell. — I write not often to you. Noav I 
think myself engaged to my dear consul Whalley to lay my 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 



295 



commands upon you that you sliow all loving respect to his 
eldest son Ly his present lady, -whom you are to receive in 
the room of his eldest brother, both into his command and 
into your affection. I assure you, though he be so nearly 
related to us, as you know, yet I could not importune on his 
behalf so heartily as now I can upon the score of his own 
worth, which indeed is as remarkable as I believe in any of 
ten thousand of his years. He is excellent in the Latin, 
French, and Italian tongues ; of good other learning, with 
parts suitable ; and, which completes this testimony, is hope- 
fully seasoned with religious principles. I^et him be much 
with you, and use him as your own. Being most serious in 
this desire and expecting a suitable return thereunto, I rest, 
Your loving father, Oliver P. 

P.S. My love to your dear wife and the two babes. 

Cornet Whalley appears to have reaped immediate fruit 
from this recommendation, for he had a grant of more than 
3000 acres in Kilkenny and Armagh. lie married Elizabeth 
daughter of Richard Chappel of Armagh Esq. and is still 
represented, The above letter is in the possession of John 
R. W. Whalley, married to Louisa daughter of Dr. Townsond 
late bishop of Mcath. See a letter signed " W. E. Little- 
dale " in Notes and Qnvrics, 20 Jnnc, 1869. 

CXXIV. To Charles Gustavus, King of Sweden. — In view 
of the daily stratagems of the common foe to Christendom, 
how acceptable would have been a more co- operative league 
with the Protestant princes, and especially with the King of 
Swedwi. But the wicked and perfidious action of enemies at 
home in confederacy with Spain has hithorfo thwarted the 
good design. Meanwhile, he invokes the Divine blessing on 
a continuance of his friend's military successes. Whitehall, 
June, 16-38. Milton. 

CXXV. To the King of Portugal, our friend and con- 
federate. — John Buffield a London merchant having consigned 
goods to Antonio, John, and Manuel Eerdhiando Castanco, 
at Tamii-a, was on his voyage home assailed by pirates. 
Sundry Portuguese merchants believing him killed, have ap- 
propriated his goods and refuse to give account of them. 
Justice is therefore claimed in behalf of the poor man, now 
reduced to poverty. Whitehall, August, 1658. Milton. This 
appears to have been the last blow struck by the English 
Protector in the cause of his suffering countrymen. 



296 LETTERS OF 

To Colonel Brrry, or oilier comnianJcr in cliief in the co. 
of Lincoln. — 'Jlie soldiers quartered in those ]>iirts having de- 
stroyed raueh game in the forests of Lincolnshire, in defiance 
of the Earl of Mulgrave's recent appointment us preserver 
thereof, — all such acts of depredation are strictly forbidden 
for the future. AVhitehall, 20 Feb. l«o5. Bodl. Lib. Ouwi. 
Raic/iii.soN A. 2G1. Furnished to Nofrs and Qupries 17 Nov. 
1860, by EdA\'ard Peacock, Avho states that the volume is 
composed entirely of letters and other official documents issued 
dui'ing the Protectorate. 



Ladi/ Kufherine Baiwlagh. 

A letter of expostulation addressed to Lord Panelagh in 
his lady's behalf, was one of the Protector's latest acts. It 
arose as follows. Katherine Boyle, sister to the Lord Brog- 
hil and to the still more renownced Hon. Kobert Boyle, be- 
came shortly before the wars the Avife of Arthur J ones viscoimt 
Pauelagh of Ireland. Her puritan faith, the exponent in her 
case of an exceptionally noble character, together with her 
friendship for John Milton, gave her in after j^ears great in- 
fluence in the councils of Cromwell, which she ever exercised 
in the behalf of the unfortunate. But her married life was 
very unhappy, and she was at last comjielled, together with 
her children, to c^uit her husband's roof in a destitute condi- 
tion. In this extremity she a] iplied through her brother Lord 
Broghil for the intervention of the Protector ; judging, to 
use her own expression, that an appeal to that authority and 
severity which he was known to exercise towards practices 
such as those of Lord Panel agh Asould accomplish the utmost 
that either persuasion or advice could effect. A letter of ex- 
postulation and rebuke to the delinquent husband Avas there- 
upon obtained from his Plighness, (Avould that it were extant), 
but it was now too late. In default of Oliver's letter, her 
ladyship's reflections on his death, addressed to Lord Brog- 
hil, may well bear recital. — " Dear dear Brother. I must 
own not to have received the news of his Plighness's death 
unmovedly. Though, when I consider, I find it is no more 
than a repetition of the lesson I have often been taught of 
the vanity of man in his best and highest estate. And sure 
he that shall think that that very person who a few days 
before shook all Eiu'ope by his fame and forces, should not 
be able to keep an ague from shaking him" . . . . 
" cannot but see how wise a counsel that is which bids us 
cease from man whose breath is in his nostrils." .... 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 297 

" If the common charity allowed to dead men he exercised 
towards him, in hurying- his faults in the grave with himself 
and keeping alive the memory of his virtues and great aims 
and actions, he will be allowed to have his place amongst the 
worthiest of men. And that's but a poor place neither ; for 
though fame be not too airy for opinion to live in, it is too 
little substantial for an immortal soul, in the exercise of its 
rational faculties, to find satisfaction in. I doubt his loss 
wiU be a growing affliction to these nations ; and we shall 
learn to value him more by missing him, than we did when 
we enjoyed him,— a perverseness of our nature that teaches 
us m every condition wherein we are, therewith to be dis- 
content, by undervaluing what we have and overvaluing what 
we have lost. I confess his performances reached not the 
making good of his professions ; but I doubt his performances 
may go beyond the professions of those who may come after 
him All this I say, not as grumbling at the wise and good 
hand which has taken him awfiy." 

^1, '^^^f -Bi'oghil's esteem for the deceased went even beyond 
that of his sister. In a beautiful letter of his addressed to 
Ihurloe on the occasion, he gathers what consolation he can 
from the example of King David at the death of his child 
now that the agony of suspense was over. " In the cause of 
grief now before us," he adds, "I am the unfittest of any to 
otter comfort, which I need as much as any. But this one 
consideration of David's actings I could not but lay before 
you it having proved an effectual consolation to me in the 
death of one I but too much loved." 

The Lady's semi-sarcastic remark about Oliver's perform- 
ances hardly corresponding with his professions, is a little 
perplexing, coming as it does from one who we fancy should 
haw known him better, or at any rate been able to read his 
position with candoiu\ Possibly her reference is to his failure 
m hberating religion from State influence, a view of things 
very likely to be derived from her intercom'se with John 
Milton for the poet's teachings constituted one of the fountains 
at which she habitually drank. This subject will be treated 
ot ni another place. 

While Milton lived at Petty Prance, after the loss of his 
eyesight, Lady Eanelagh was the most valued of his visitors 
Moreover she had in former years placed under his tuition, 
lirsta nephew, and then one of her own sons. Of letters 
passing between tliem, none are extant, but his personal tes- 
timony survnes that she was " a most superior woman ;" and 
^Iien she went to Ireland in 1656, he " grieves for the loss 
o± tlie one acquaintance which was worth to him all the rest " 



298 ANECDOTES OF 

Pier laficr days wore passed in llic house of lier hrotlier the 
J [on. lioLort Boyk-, until IGOl, wliou they both died within 
a few days of eacli other. Bishop Biu-not in a funeral 
sermon says, — " His sister and he were pleasant in their lives, 
and in their death they were not divided. For as he lived 
witli her above forty years, so he did not outlive her above a 
week. Botli died from the same cause, nature Ijeing quite spent 
in both. She lived tlie hmgest on the public scene, and niado 
the greatest figure in all the revolutions of these kingdoms 
for above fifty years, of any woman of our age." Such is the 
verdict of one who know her well. With the mention of a 
small additional fact, lier history may bo concluded. She was 
allied to the Protect or;d house l»y the marriage of her sister, 
Mavy Bo3'lo, to Charles Ivicli, the Earl of Warwick's second 
sou, whose nephew became Oliver's son in law. 



ANECDUTKS. 



On the value of anecdotes as /Y';•.sv^s• the almanaek form of 
history, Horace Walpole has a word. " I have sent," says 
he, writing to Lady Ossory, " for the memoirs of Cromwell's 
family [by Mark Noble,] but as yet have only seen extracts 
from it in a magazine. It can contain nothing a thousandth 
jtart so emious as what wo know already, — the intermarriage 
in the fourth descent of Oliver's posterity and Iving Charles's, 
— the speech of liichard Cromwell to Lord ]jatliurst in the 
House of Lords, — and Fanny llussell's reply to the late 
Prince of Wales on the tiOth of January. They are anecdotes, 
especially the two first, worthy of being inserted in tlio 
history of mankind, wliich, if ^^'ell chosen and well written, 
would precede conmion histories, which are but repetitions of 
no micommon events." 29 August, 1784. 

Did Ol'u'vr pnhli-ih (on/thiiKj hcj'ot'c the hreakiny out of ivar ' 

The ''IRstoiir (VOUrk'r Cromwell," by M. Paguenet, 
printed in KJOl, attriljutcs to him the campilation and issue 
of a book in 1G40 entitled " The Enylish Bamaria," likening 



OLIVER. CROMWELL. 



299 



the court of Charles I. to that ol Ahab ;— followed soon after 
by a volume entitled " 77/e Ptiritaii Foiica.s,'^ in which ilie 
Houses of Parliament and tlie religious sects are treated with 
much f-arcasm. They have been sought in vain among the 
Civil War quartos in the British Museum Library. 




IVie EodriiKj Bot/s. 

(Sir Ed\Nard Baynton the Wiltshire knight of Bromham 
Hall used to say that Henry Martyn was incomparably good 
company, but lie got drunk too soon, T]ieso two wore chief 
among tlu^ " Roaring Boys," a class of persons who tliough 
hostile to churclimen, brouglit little credit to the Parliament's 
cause. A godly member once moved in the House that all 
profane and unsanotiiied persons should be excluded. Martyn 
replied, — " And all the fools likewise, and then we shall have 
a thin house." Once having spoken in opposition to the 
elder Sir Harry Yane, he was concluding thus, — "'But as for 
young Sir Harry . . . . " " Well, what about young Sir 



300 ANECDOTES OF 

Harry y" iraid tlio.-c alxuit liiiii. — "Why, tliat if Lo grow 
old, he Avill l)e oM Sir J Larry," {iiid satdown. ("roniwcll 
onee in raillery addressed him as "Sir lleiny Marlyu." 
This was l<iii>^- liei'ore Oliver had hiinscU" risen into puVdie 
notice. The witty Member rising and bowing, responded, — 
" 1 thank your Majest}^ I always thought tliai as soiju as 
y(ju Avere King, I should be knighted." There was some- 
thing very different from jokes passing between them at the 
dissolution uf the Long i'arliament. 

The Soldier's Podrf Bihlv. 

An aeeount of llie ]ioekel-r>iltie [irinted by Cromwell's 
order for distribution among his men was some time back 
])ublished Ijy ]\Lr. (jeorge liivermoro of Cambridge, ]\Iassa- 
ehnsets, who possesses one of tlio only two copies known to 
exist, the other being in the Brit. Mus. Library. As the 
issue of sucli a book has been unnotieed eitlier by Mr. Carlyle 
or by the IVotector's more recent biographer Mr. Sanford, 
the best i)lan will bo ju^tto reju-int it entirely, — first, because 
it is in reality a very brief affair, — and secondly, because it 
may with some pr()bal)ility lie acce]>ted as Oliver's own com- 
pilation. " l^nglish bibliographers," observes Mr. Ijivermori^ 
Avriting aitparently in IS.jO, " have never been able till the 
past year to decide what edition of the Bible was furnished 
to Oliver's men ; and the existence of the Soldier .s Bible was 
uidcuown till I sent a description of it to Kev. Dr. Cotton, 
(Jeorge ( )ffer \^W[., Henry Stei)hens Lsq. andotlier eminent 
bibliographers." And even now, bej'ond tlie scant informa- 
tion furnished by the title page, we seem to know very little 
about its history or the measures taken for its distribution. 
That such a book was really in use, we learn from Kicliard 
J'axter Avho lelates flie story of a soldier receiving a shf)t 
near the heart, the fatal force of the bullet benig arrested by 
its lodging in the Bible Avhich ho carried in his breast. And 
a very tfiin Bible it was too, being comprised in a sheet folded 
in It) mo. An entire Bible, even in the most compact form 
then known, Avould have been far too l)ulky and far too 
expensive. Oliver's practical mind therefore suggested a 
seh'ction of texts grouped into cliajiters under apjiropriate 
lieadings, and designed to meet tliose varied difficullies which 
the fortune of war was sure to present to men avIio like him- 
self had a conscience. The version adopted (it has been said) 
is more generally that of the Geneva Bible than any other. 
The Puritan ]iarty had still a lingering attachment to that 
text, — not the less so because Archbishop Laud had made it 



OLl^'Ell CROMWELL. 301 

a high-commission crime to vend, bind, or import, a copy. 
The choice of passages in the Sol(livr\ Bihh> indicates iwo 
things principally, — first, that Oliver and the men who 
wrought with him, thoroughly understood their cause to be 
that of light against darkness, — and, secondly, that they 
never for a moment doubted the triiimpliant issue of that 
cause. The title page of the copy in the British Museum 
bears the date of 1G48, and a contemporary hand has added 
in manuscript "August 8rd." Now, students of the Civil 
War are Avell aware that August 1G43 marks the period of 
the Parliament's lowest depression. The brilliant affair of 
Roundway-down had enabled the royalists to enter the city 
of Bristol by little more than menace, and the entire West 
with the exception perhaps of Taunton seemed to bo lying 
prostrate at the King's feet. But listen to Oliver's poeans of 
victory by which he seems to overstep in anticipation the 
dark interval of another campaign. — " This was the Lord's 
doing and it is marvellous in oiu* eyes."- — " For the Lord 
fought for Israel." — " Now therefore our God we ihank thee 
and praise thy glorious name." 



THE SOIJLDIETrS POCKET BIBLE 

Contaiiiiiif,' the most (if not all) those places contained in 

Holy Scripture wliicli doc shew the qualifications of 

his inner man that is a lit souldier to fight the 

Lords Battels, Ijoth before ho fight, in the 

fight, and after the fight ; 

Which Scriptures are reduced to sevcrall heads and fitly 

applyed to the Souldicrs sevcrall occasions, and so may 

supply the want of the whole Bible, Avhich a 

Souldier cannot conveniently carry about him : 

And may bee also nsefuU for any Christian to meditate 
upon, now in this miserable time of Warre. 



Imprimatur, Edm. Calamy. 



Jos. 18. — This book of the law shall not depart ont of thy mouth, 
but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thoumaist observe 
to doe according to all that is written therein, for then thou shalt 
make thy way prosperous, and have good successe. 



Printed at London, by G. B. and R. W. for G. C. 
1G43. 



302 



AXKCDOTHS OF 



THE SOULDIEll'S POCKET BIBLE. 



^1 SmtltJirr DUisI not (Joe iriclidbj. 

Dent, xxiii. 0. When thou gocst 
out with the Host against th'uu 
cnoniics, keep thee then Ironi all 
wickedness. 

Tiuke iii. 14. The souldicrs 
likewise demanded of him, saying : 
And what shall we doV And he 
said unto them : Do violence to 
no man, neither accuse any 
falsely; and be content with your 
wages. 

Lcvit. xxvi. 27, 37. And if yon 
will not for this obey me, you 
shall not be able to staud bcl'oro 
your enemies. 

Deut. xxviii. 25. And the Lord 
shall cause thee to fall before 
thine enemies. Thou shalt come 
out one way against them, and 
fly seven ways before them. 

A Souhl/'rr muf<l he riil/'d})/ fur 
God's caui<r. 

1 Sam. xviii. 17. Be valiant 
and fight the Lord's battles. 

2 8am. 10. Be strong, and let 
us be valiant for our people and 
for the cities of our God : and let 
the Lord do that which is good in 
his eyes. 

1 Sam. xvii. 47. For the battle 
is the Lord's, and he will give you 
into our hands. 

A Souldicr must deny In'n ovn 
u-indom, his own strenfjlh, and all 
2ir('vision for wa r. 

Prov. iii. 5. Lean not to thine 
own wisdom. 

1 Sam. ii. !•. In his own might 
shall no man be strong. 

Psal. xliv. G. I do not trust in 
my IwAV, neither can my sword 
save me. 

Psal. xxxiii. 10. A king is not 
saved by the multitude of an host, 
neither is tlic mighty man delivered 
bj'much strength. 



Psal. xxxiii. 17. A horse is a 
vain help, an<l shall not deliver in 
the day of battle. 

Eccle. viii. H. IMan hath not 
power over death, nor deliverance 
in battle. 

2 (Jhro. XX. 12. There is no 
power in ns to stand against this 
great mnUitude, neither do wo 
know what to do ; but our eyes 
arc towards thee. 

A Souldicr mt(sl pnlldi confidence 
In God's trisdnni and strenfjlh. 

Ephc. vi. 10. Be strong in the 
Lord and in the power of his 
might. 

Jol) xii. 1,3. For Avith him is 
wisdom and strength : He hath 
counsel and understanding. 

Psal. Ixviii. 3."). The God of 
Israel is lie that glveth strength 
and power unto his people. 

Psal. xlvi. 4. God is our hope 
and strength and help, in troul)le 
ready to be found. 

2 Chro. XXV. S. CJ od hath power 
to help and to cast down. 

Psal. Ixvii. l(j. I will go for- 
ward in the strength of the Lord. 

1 Sam. xvii. 45. Then David 
said unto the Philistine : Thou 
comest to me with a sword and 
with a spear and with a shield ; 
but I come unto thee in the name 
of the Lord of Hosts, the God of 
Israel. 

A Souldicr mvsf jway hrfurc lie 
go to fight. 

Neh, iv. 0. Then we prayed 
unto our God, and .set watchmen 
by them day and night, because of 
them. 

Judg. xvi. 2ft. Then Sampson 
called .unto the Lord and said, O 
Lord God, I pray thee think upon 
me; O (Jod, I beseech thee 
strengthen me at this time, &c. 

2 Sam. XV. 31. And David said. 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 



303 



O Lord, I pray thee, turn the 
counsel of Ahitophill into foolish- 
ness. 

James i. 5. If any of you lack 
wisdom, let him ask it of God. 

Psal. cxix. 34 Give me under- 
standing, and I shall keep thy 
law ; yea, I shall observe it with 
my whole heart. 

Psal. Ixxxvi. 12. Give strength 
unto tl I y servant and save the son 
of thine handmaid. 

Psal. XXXV.. 12. Plead thou my 
cause, O Lord, with them that 
strive with me : fight thou against 
Ihem tliat fight against me. 

Bring out tlie spear and stop the 
way against them, [.s/r] 

Judg. X. U>. And the children 
of Israel said unto the Lord : We 
have sinned; do thou unto us 
whatsoever please thee ; only we 
pray thee, deliver us this day. 

A Sduldirr mvftt conftidrr and 
hclirvc Clod's grticioufi jiroiiu'sfs. 

2 Chro. XX. 20. And when they 
arose early in the morning tliey 
went forth to the widerness of 
Tekoa ; and as they departed, 
Jehosliaphat stood aiul said : Hear 
me, O Judah and ye inhabitants 
of Jerusalem : i)ut your trust in 
the Lord your God, and ye shall 
be assured : Believe his prophets 
and ye shall prosper. 

Dent. XX. 4. For the Lord your 
God goeth with you to fight for 
you against your enemies, and to 
save you. 

Exo. xiv. 14. The Lord shall 
fight for you. 

2 Kin. xvii. 39. Fear ihe Lord 
your God, and he shall deliver 
you out of the hands of all your 
enemies. 

Dan. iii. 17. Behold our God 
Avhom Ave serve is al:ile to deliver 
us from the hot fiery furnace ; and 
He will deliver us out of thine 
hand, O King. 

1 Chro. xvii. 10. And I will 
subdue all thine enemies. 

Isa. xli. 12. Thou shalt seek 
them and shalt not find them, to 



wit, the men of thy strife : for 
they shall be as nothing ; and the 
men that war against thee, as a 
thing of naught. 

Isa. liv. 17. Xo weapon made 
against thee shall prosper. 

A Hvuldi(r mnal not fear his 
enemies. 

Dcut. XX. 1. When thou shalt 
go forth to war against thine 
enemies, aiid shalt see horses and 
chariots more than tluni, be not 
afraid of them, for the Lord thy 
God is with thee. 

Dcut. iii. 32. Ye shall not fear 
them, for the Lord your God shall 
fight for you ; fear them not, for 
I have given them into thine 
hand. 

2 Chro. xxxii. 7fi. Be strong 
and courageous : fear not, neither 
1)0 afraid for the King of Ashur, 
neither for all the multitude that 
is with him: for there be 'more 
witli us than with him : with him 
is an arm of flesh, l)ut with us is 
the Lord our God, for to help us 
and to figlit our l)attles. 

Isa. vii. 4. Fear not, "neither 
be faint-hearted, for the two tails 
of the smoking flrc-brands. 

Matt. X. 28. And fear ye not 
them which kill the body. 

A Souldier must love Jiis enemies 
(IS theij are his enemies, and hate 
ihem as they are God's enemies. 

Matt. V. 44 But I say unto you, 
Love your enemies. 

2 Chron. xix. 2. Wouldest thou 
help the wicked, and love them 
that hate the Lord ? 

Psa. cxxxix. 21, 22. Do not 
I hate them Lord that hate 
thee, and do not I earnestly con- 
tend with them that rise up ngainst 
thee ? I hate them with an un- 
feigned hatred, as they are mine 
utter enemies. 

A Souldier must ery tin to God 
in his heart in the vern instant of 
the battle. 



304 



ANECDOTES OF 



2 Cliron. xiii. 11. TIkmi Jiulali 
looked and hcliold the liattle was 
before and hehiiid thorn, and they 
cr_yed unto tlie Lord. 

"2 Chron. xiv. 11. And Asa 
cryed unto the Lord his God, and 
said Lord, it is notliing witli tlice 
to help with many or with no 
power. 

2 Chron. xviii. 31. And wlicn 
the captains of the chariots saw 
Johoshapliat, they said, it Is the 
King of Israel ; and tliey com- 
passed about him to fight ; but 
Jehos]ia})liat cryed, and the Lord 
helped him and moved tlieni to 
dej)art from him. 

A Soiildicr nriiNt conftUJer ilutt 
soineiimes Cof/'.s- people laive the 
'worst hi battle as well as God's 
enemies. 

1 Sam. xi. 25. The sword de- 
voureth one as avcII as another. 

Eccles. ix. 2. All things come 
alike to all. There is one event 
to the rigliteousand to the wicked, 
to the good and to the clean and 
to the unclean ; to him that 
sacrificeth and to him that sacri- 
ticeth not. As is the good, so is 
the sinner ; and he that sweareth 
as he that feareth an oath. 

Jos. vii. 4. So there went up 
thither of the people about three 
thousand men and they fled befoi'e 
the men of Ai. 

Judg. vi. 2. And the hand of 
Midian prevailed against Israel. 

1 Sam. iv. 10. And the Philis- 
tines fought and Israel was smitten 
down and fled every man into his 
tent, and there was an exceeding 
great slaughter, for there fell of 
Israel thirty thousand footmen. 

Exo. xvii. 11. But when Moses 
let his hand go down, Amalek 
prevailed. 

Sam. i. ]('). My children are 
desolate because the enemy pre- 
vailed. 

Souldiers and all of its must 
consider that though God'^ people 
have the worst, yetit cometh of the 
Lord. 



lisa. xlii. 24. Who gave Jacob 
to the spoil and Israel to the 
roljljcrs V Did not I the Lord ? 

Amos iii. ti. Shall there be evil 
in a city, and the Lord hath not 
done it ? 

Judg. xlii. And the Lord sold 
them into the hands of Jabin King 
of Canaan. 

Lam. i. 14. The Lord hath 
delivered me into their hands, 
neither am I able to rise up. 

Lam. ii. 7. The Lord hath for- 
saken his altar. He hatli abliorred 
his sanctuary : He hath given it 
into the hand of the enemy. 

For the iniquities of G od'' s propl e 
\_ih''!l~\ are delirerrd into t/ie hands 
(f their enemies. 

Deut. xxix. 24, 25. Then shall 
all nations say : Wherefore hath 
the Lord done this unto this land : 
how fierce is his great wrath. 
And they shall answer : Because 
they have forsaken the Covenant 
of the Lord God of their fathers. 

Jos. vii. 10, 11. And the Lord 
said unto Joshua : Get thee up ; 
wherefore liest thou thus upon 
thy face : Israel hath sinned, and 
they have transgressed my coven- 
ant which I commanded them. 

Jer. xl. 2, 3. The Lord thy 
God hatli jironounced this plague 
upon this place : now the Lord 
liath brought it and done according 
as he hath said, because ye have 
sinned against the Lord. 

Jer. 1. G, 7. My people have 
been as lost sheep : all that found 
them have devoured them : and 
their enemies said, We offend not, 
because they have sinned against 
the Lord. 

Lam. iii. 30. Wherefore then is 
the living man sorrowful ? Man 
sulTcreth for his sin. 

Therfore both Souldiers and all 
God's peo2)le upon such occasions 
must search out their sins. 

Lam. iii. 40. Let us search and 
try our ways, and turn again unto 
tlae -Lord. 



OLIVER CROMWELL, 



305 



Jos. vii 13. Up therefore, 
sanctify yourselves ag.ainst to- 
morrow, for thus saith the Lord 
God of Israel, There is an exe- 
crable thing amongst you, there- 
fore you cannot stand against 
your enemies until ye have put 
the execrable thing from among 
you. 

Es2)ecialhj let Souldiers and all 
of us ^lpon such occasions search 
whether we have not put too little 
confidence in the arm of the Lord, 
and too much in the arm of flesh. 

Jer. ii. 13. For my people heve 
committed two evils : they have 
forsaken me, the fountain of 
living waters, to dig them pits, 
even broken pits that will hold 
no water. 

Jer. ii. 37. Therefore saith the 
Lord, they shall go forth from 
thence with their hands upon their 
heads, because the Lord hath re- 
jected their confidence : they shall 
not prosper thereby. 

Jer. xvii. 5. Therefore thus 
saith the Lord : cursed be the 
man that trusteth in man and 
maketh flesh his arm, and with- 
draweth his heart from the Lord. 

And let Sotddiers and all of us 
consider that to prevent this sin 
and for the committing of this sin, 
the Lord hath ever been accustomed 
to give the victonj to afeio. 

Jud. vii. 2. And the Lord said 
unto Gideon, the people that are 
with thee are too many for me to 
give the Midianites into their 
hands, lest Israel make their vaunt 
against me and say, mine hand 
hath saved me. 

Jud. vii. 7. Then the Lord 
said unto Gideon : By these three 
hundred men that lapped will I 
save you, and deliver the Midian- 
ites into thine hands. 

Jud. XX. 15. And the children 
of Benjamin were numbered at 
that time out of the cities, six and 
twenty thousand men that drew 
sword. 



Jud. XX. 17. Also the men of 
Israel besides Benjamin were 
numbered four hundred thousand 
men that drew sword. 

Jud. XX. 21. And the children 
of Benjamin came out of Gibeah, 
and slowdown to the ground of the 
Israelites that day two and twenty 
thousand men. 

Jud. XX. 25. And the second 
day Benjamin came forth to meet 
them out of Gibeah, and slew 
down to the ground of the child- 
ren of Israel again eighteen thou- 
sand men. 

Jud. XX. 30. And the children 
of Israel went up against the 
children of Benjamin the third 
day. 

Jud. XX. 43. And compassed 
the Benjamites about, and chased 
them at ease, and overran them ; 
and there were slain of Benjamines 
eighteen thousand men. 

Jud. XX. 44. And the Israelites 
gleaned of them by the way five 
thousand men, and pursued after 
them into Gidon, and slew two 
thousand men of them. 

Jud. XX. 45. So that all that 
were slain that day of Benjamin 
were five and twenty thousand 
men that drew sword. 

2 Chron. xiii. 3. And Abijah 
set the battle in array with the 
army of valiant men of war, even 
four hundred thousand chosen 
men. Jeroboam also set the battle 
in array against him with eight 
hundred thousand chosen men, 
which were strong and valiant. 

2 Chron. xiii. 4. And Abijah 
stood upon the mount Zemeraim 
and said, O Jeroboam and all Israel, 
hear me. 

2 Chron. xiii. 8. Ye think that 
ye be able to resist against the 
kingdom of the Lord which is in 
the hands of the sons of David ; 
and ye see a great multitude, and 
the golden calves are with you 
which Jeroboam hath made you 
for gods. 

2 Chron. xiii. 10. But we be- 
long to the Lord our God, and have 
not forsaken him. 

w 



306 



ANECDOTES OF 



2 Clirou. xiii. 12. And behold 
this God is with us as a captain : 
() yo children of Israel, fight not 
against the Lord God of your 
fatlicrs, for yo shall not prosper. 

2 Chron. xiii. 13. But Jero- 
boam caused an ambushmcnt to 
compass and come beliind them. 

2 Chron. xiii. 14. Then Judah 
looked and beheld tlic battle was 
before and behind tlicm, and they 
cried unto the Lord. 

2 Chron. xiii. 15. And the men 
of Judah gave a shout ; and as 
the men of Judah shouted, God 
smote Jeroboam and also Israel 
before Abijah and Judah." 

2 Chron. xiii. 17. And Abijah 
and his people slew a great 
slaughter of tliem, so that there 
Cell of them down wounded five 
hundred thousand chosen men. 

2 Chron. xiv. 8. And Asa had 
an army of Judah that bare shields 
and spears three hundred tliou- 
sand ; and of Benjamin that bare 
shields and '.drew bows four 
hundred and fourscore thousand : 
all these were valiant men of war. 

2 Chron. xiv. 'J. And there 
came out against them Zerah of 
Ethiopia, with an host of ten 
linndrcd thousand and three 
hundred chariots. 

2 Chron. xiv. 17. Then Asa 
went out before him, and they 
set the battle in array in the 
valley of Zephathah beside Mare- 
shah. 

2 Chron. xiv. 11. And Asa 
cried unto the Lord his God, and 
said. Lord it is nothing Avith thee 
to help with many or with no 
power : help us O Lord our God, 
for we rest on thee, and in thy 
name are avc come against this 
multitude. O Lord thou art our 
God, let not man prevail against 
thee. 

And let Souldiers and aU of us 
hnoio iliut the very ni<k af time 
that God hath promised us help is 
when we see no help in man. 

Gen. xxii. 14. In the mount 
will the Lord be seen. 



Exo. xiv. 13. Then Moses said 
unto the people : Fear ye not, 
standstill and behold the salvation 
of the Lord which he Avill shew 
to you ; this day the Lord shall 
fight for you, therefore hold you 
your peace. 

2 Chron. xx. 11. O oiu- God, 
wilt thou not judge them ; for 
there is no strength in.us to stand 
against this great multitude, 
neither do wc know what to do, 
but our eyes are towards thee. 

2 Chron. xx. 17. Ye shall not 
need to fight in this battle ; stand 
still, move not, and behold the 
salvation of the Lord towards j-ou. 

Dent, xxxii. 3;"), 3(). Vengeance 
and recompence are mine ; their 
feet shall slide in due time, for 
the day of their calamities is at 
hand, and all things that shall 
come upon you make haste. For 
the Lord shall judge his people 
and repent toAvards his serAants, 
Avhen he seetli that their power is 
gone and none shut up in hold or 
left abroad. 

2 Cor. xii. 11. For my power 
is made perfect through Avoak- 
ness. 

Zach. iv. G. For neither by an 
army nor strength, but by my 
Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts. 

Psal. xii. 5. Isoav for the op- 
pression of the needy and for the 
sighs of the poor, I will up, saith 
the Lord. I Avill set him in safety 
from him that puffeth at him. 

Esa. xxxiii. 10. Now Avill I 
arise, saith the Lord, now will I 
be exalted, now will I lift up 
myself. 

Wherefore, if our forces he 
iDeakcnrd, and the enemy strength- 
ened, then let Souldiers and all 
if us know thai now we have a 
jiromise of God's help irhich v>e, 
had not when toe were stronger ; 
and therefore let us pray more 
confidently. 

Esa. xxxiii. 2. Lord, have 
mercy on us, avc haA-c Avaitcd for 
thee ; be thou which wast their 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 



307 



arm in the morning our help also 
in the time of tronble. 

Deut. xxxiii. 7. Hear, O Lord, 
the voice of Jndah, and bring him 
nnto his peojile : his hands sliall 
be sufficient for liim if thou help 
him against his enemies. 

Psal. cxlii. 45. I looked upon 
my right hand and beheld, but 
there was none that would know 
me : all refuge failed me, and 
none cared for my soul. Then 
cried I unto the Lord, and said, 
Thou art my hope. 

Psal. xxii. 11. Be not far from 
me, because trouble is near, and 
there is none to help. 

Psal. xcvii. 8. Remember not 
against us our former iniquities ; 
but make haste and let thy tender 
mercies prevent us, for we are 
brought very low. 

Psal. XXXV. 2. Lay band upon 
the sword and buckler, and stand 
up for my help. 

Psal. Ixxix. 9. Help us, O God 
of our salvation, for the glory of 
thy name. 

And let Souldiers and all of vs 
know that if tre obtain any victory 
over our enemies^ it is our duty to 
give all the glory to the Lord ^ and 
say— 



Exo. XV. 3. The Lord is a man 
of war, his name is Jehovah. 

Exo. XV. 6. Thy right hand, 
O Lord,|i8 glorious in power : thy 
right hand, O Lord, hath bruised 
the enemies. 

Exo. XV. 7. And in thy great 
glory thou hast overthrown them 
that rose up against thee. 

Psal. cxviii. 23. This was the 
Lord's doing, and it is marvellous 
in our eyes. 

Josh. x. 14. For the Lord 
fought for Israel. 

INlic. vii. 7. Therefore will we 
look unto the Lord. 

2 Cor. i. 10. Who delivered us 
from so great a death. 

1 Cor. xxix. 15. Now, therefore, 
our God, we thank thee and praise 
thy glorious name. 

Esra ix. 13, 14. And seeing that 
thou, our God, hast staid us from 
being beneath for our iniquities, 
and hast given us such a deliver- 
ance, should we return to break 
thy commandments ? 

Psal. cxvi. 9. I will walk be- 
fore the Lord in the laud of the 
living. 

Psal. cxix. 109. I have vowed, 
and I will perform it, that I will 
keep thy righteous judgments. 

T///.S' in licensed according to order. 



FINIS. 



The Test of the Keyhole. 

Sir John Gooclricke of Eibstone Hall, who died in 1702, 
used to relate a narrative, which may with prohabiliiy ho 
associated with the siege of Knaresborough Castle in 1644, and 
which Avas told him by an antient midwife who had formerly 
been attendant on his mother. "When Cromwell came to lodge 
at our house in Knaresborough," said she, " I was then but 



308 ANECDOTES OF 

a young girl. Having heard much talk about the man, I 
looked at him with wonder ; and being ordered to take a pan 
of coals and air his bod, I could not during the operation 
forbear peeping over my shoulder several times to observe 
this extraordinary person, who was seated at the far side of 
the room, untying his garters. Having aired the bed I went 
out, and shutting the door after me stopped and peeped 
through the keyhole, when I saw him rise from his seat, ad- 
vance to the bed, and fall on his knees, in which attitude I 
left him for some time. When retm^ning again, I found 
him still at prayer ; and this was his custom every night as 
long as he stayed at our house. From which I concluded 
that he must be a good man ; and this opinion I always 
maintained afterwards, though I heard him very much 
blamed and exceedingly abused." 

" No, we should say," to quote a modern reviewer, " there 
would be no shaking this woman's faith in him. To her he 
would appear as what he was, genuine and transparent. 
How many of Cromwell's maligners, how many of us writers 
and readers, would stand the test of the keyhole ?" Eclectic 
Rcviciv. Date mislaid. The story is told in the Life of the 
Protector by Mr. Oliver Cromwell of Cheshunt, who derived 
it from the Ocntleman's Mar/aziiic. He adds that the old 
lady in question, who it seems passed the later years of her 
life at Kibstone Hall, bore in youth the name of Eleanor 
Ellis. Her father's house in Knaresborough where Cromwell 
lodged stood in the High Street near what is now the Crov/n 
Inn. The house was rebuilt in 1764, but care was taken 
that the floor of the Cromwell-chamber sljwuld be preserved 
imdisturbed. Eleanor Ellis was born in January, 1632, as 
testified by the parish register ; consequently she was twelve 
years old at the time of the never-to-be-forgotten visit. She 
afterwards married Mr. Fishwick, had several children, and 
died in 1714, aged eighty-two. 



The Afflatus. 

There can be no doubt that throughout his public career 
Oliver was powerfully sustained by his soundness of heart. 
It is also on record that this confidence not unfrequently 
broke silence and found expression in what eye-witnesses 
were in the habit of terming "Impulses," and which he 
himself cared neither to suppress nor to conceal. Let us 
hear what John Aubrey tlie Wiltshire antiquary has to say 
about it. Under the head of "Impulses" he wi'ites,— 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 309 

"Oliver Cromwell had certainly this attiatiis. One that I 
knew, and who was present at the battle of Dunbar, told mo 
that Oliver was carried on with a divine impidse. He did 
laugh so excessively as if he had been drunk, and his eyes 
sparkled with spii^its. He obtained on that occasion a great 
victory, though the action was said to be contrary to human 
prudence. The same fit of laughter seized him just before 
the battle of Naseby, as a kinsman of mine and a great 
favomite of his, Colonel J. P. [Pointz?] then present, 
testified." Aubrey's Miscellanies. 

Singularly enough, Oliver's own account in after days of 
what was passing in his mind at Naseby amply corroborates 
the above. — " I can say this of Naseby," says he, " that 
when I saw the enemy draw up and march in gallant order 
towards us ; and we a company of poor ignorant men to seek 
how to order oiu' battle, (the Greneral having commanded me 
to order all the horse,) I could not, riding alone about my 
business, but smile out to Grod in praises, in assurance of 
victory ; because Grod would by things that are not bring to 
nought things that are ; of which I had great assm'ance ; 
and God did it." 

This serene reliance on an ever present power is discover- 
able in his correspondence from the first. To the Committee 
of the Cambridge association in 1642, he says, — '"Verily I 
do think the Lord is with me. I undertake strange things, 
yet do I go through with them to great profit and gladness, 
and furtherance of the Lord's great work. I do feel myself 
lifted on by a strange force, I cannot tell why. By night 
and by day I am urged forward in the great work." 

And well did he need this buoyancy of spirit to carry him 
over the bogs and rough places of his life's campaign. 
" Withal, unexpectedly enough," says Carlyle concerning 
the Scottish King of men, " this Knox has a vein of drollery 
in him, which I like much, in combination with his other 
qualities ; he has a true eye for the ridiculous . . . They go 
far wrong Avho think this Knox was a gloomy, spasmodic, 
shrieking fanatic. Not at all : he is one of the solidest of 
men." And they go equally far wrong to whom the English 
King of men is no other than a " gloomy brewer,"* 



*' " And all that from the town would stroll, 
Till that wild wind made work, 
In which the gloomy Brewer's soul 
Went by mo like a stork." 

Tennyson's Talking Oaki 



310 ANECDOTES OF 

Perhaps Aubrey thiuk.s tliat the following was another 
illustration of the Alllatus, but ho omits his authority for the 
unheard of atrocity. " Oliver," says he, " fell dangerouisly 
ill during his Scjottish campaign of a kind of calenture or 
high fever, which made him so mad that in his rage he 
pistolled one or two of his officers who came to visit him." 
Letters fro)n the Bodleian, ii. 358. 

And as Oliver was, so in a subordinate measure were some 
of his comrades. Colonel Harrison, for instance, represents 
the class of enthusiasts who were ever prompt to anticipate 
victory in a psalm of triumph. Richard Baxter says of him 
that " he had a sanguine complexion, and was naturally of 
such a vivacity, hilarity, and alacrity, as another man is when 
lie hatli taken a cup too much. I once heard him in a battle 
when the enemy b(\<j;;ui to ilce, with a loud voice break forth 
into the praises of (Jlod, with lluent expressions, as if he had 
been in a rapture." 

Oliver's narrative of how he felt before the shock at Naseby 
may fitly introduce the next enquiry. 



Who would ceitture to touch Oliro-'.'i t)ridle-rein ? 

Seldom has character been more effectively delineated by 
a single master-stroke than when Lord Macaulay, in his 
Review of llalla)n\ Iliatori/, was contrasting the relative 
conduct of King C'liarles and Oliver Cromwell in moments of 
peril. The scene is the field of Naseby, — the moment, the 
period of the fatal panic which was spreading in the royal 
army as the effect of the King's indecision and want of self- 
possession. The ignominious climax was reached when 
a Scottish nobleman begged the King not to run upon his 
own death, and taking hold of the royal bridle, fairly tm-ned 
the horse round. Macaulay thereupon observes, — " No one 
who had much value for his life would have tried to perform 
the same friendly office, on that day, for Oliver Cromwell." 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 



311 



Oliver as a dramjhUmaii. 




John R t^ d o l r ii 

G L A U B E R, was tllO 

author of an old quarto 
entitled, " Philosophi- 
cal Furnaces, or a new 
art of distilling, divided 
into five parts; where - 
unto is added a descrip- 
tion of the tinctui'e of 
gold, or the true aureum 
portahUe ; also the first 
part of the mineral 
work. Set forth and 
published for the sake 
of them that are 
studious of the truth. 
London, printed by 
Richard Coats, for 
Tho. Williams. 
1651 — 52." In a copy 
of this work recently 
sold by auction (at 
Sotheby and Wilkin- 
son's ? ) there was found a pen and ink sketcli of a plan of 
liatlle, subscribed " 0. Crotmvdl^^ as per annexed fac-simile ; 
and this signatiu'c was repeated at tlio begining and end of 
the volume, the former dated 1053. The drawing looks, not 
so mucli like the delineation of a past battle, as the sketch of 
a suggested strategctic movement in a battle just about to 
come oil' ; indicating as wo may suppose, where Fairfax is 
to "passe" in order to take the enemy in flank, and also 
where in another part of the field a body of horse are to break 
the enemy's line. The plan of action hardly corresponds 
with anything at Marston-Moor, for there Cromwell com- 
manded t]ic left wing and Fairfax was on his right. Neither 
does it tally with Naseby. Possibly it has reference to 
Winceby fight, in October 1643, where we are told that 
" (iuarter-mastcr-General Vermuyden with five troops had 
the forlorn hope, and Colonel Cromwell the van, assisted with 
other of my lord's troops, and seconded by Sir Thomas 
Fail-fax." 



312 ANECDOTES OF 

His (jallant behaiuour to women. 

The list of officers who fell on the King's side at Marston 
Moor includes the name of Charles Towneley of Towneley Esq. 
a Lancashire papist, connected with whose death we have a 
family tradition illustrative of Oliver's humanity. Towneley's 
%vife, Mary, daughter of Sir Francis Trappes, was, dm-ing 
the anxious period of the battle, waiting with her father at 
Knaresborough, where the news of her husband's death was 
brought to her on the following morning and prompted her 
to go and search for his body. On reaching the fatal field, 
where the attendants of the camp were stripping and burying 
the dead, she was accosted by a general officer, to whom she told 
her melancholy story. He heard her with great tenderness, but 
earnestly besought her to quit a place where, besides the 
distress of witnessing such a scene, she might probably be 
insulted. She complied, and he called a trooper, who took 
her en croup. On her way to Knaresborough she enquired 
of the man the name of the officer to whose civility she was 
indebted, and learnt that it was Lieutenant-general Cromwell. 
The lady survived till 1690, dying at Towneley, and being- 
buried in the family chapel at Burnley, aged ninety one. 
The anecdote was told to Dr. Whitaker the editor of Sir 
George Madcli/f'e's Corresjwndence, by the then representative 
of the family to whom it had been handed down by his 
ancestress Ursula Towneley (a Fermor of Tusmore and 
aunt to Pope's Belinda,) who had it from the ladj^ herself, 
J. Langton Sanfor(Vs studies and illustrations of tJic great 
rebel] ion, j)- 611. 

We may not forget that at this moment Oliver's own 
heart was sorely riven by a catastrophe whicli had befallen 
his eldest smwiving son. See img© G. And to this son's 
death must fiu-ther be added that of his nephew Yalentine 
Wanton at Marston-moor. Finally, he was himself wounded 
at Marston-moor. 

His discovery of a young lady in male apparel. 

When last in Raby towers we met, 

That boy I closely eyed, 
And often marked his cheeks were wet 

With tears he fain would hide. 
His was no rugged horse-boy's hand, 
To burnish shield or sharpen brand, 

Or saddle battle steed ; 
But meeter seemed for lady fair, 
To fan her cheek or curl her hair, 
Or through embroidery rich and rare 

The slender silk to lead. 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 313 

His skin was fair, his ringlets gold, 

His bosom, when he sighed, 
The russet doublet's rugged fold 

Could scarce repel its pride. 
Say, hast thou given that lovely youth 

To serve in lady's bower ? 
Or was the gentle page, in sooth, 

A gentle paramour ? 

Scott's Mufiiilon. 

The parish register of Odstock in Wiltshire long- contained, 
and perhaps still retains, some profane lines, under date 1G44, 
supposed to have been the handiwork of Lord Henry Percy 
(of the Army-plot ;) and attached to them is the following— 
" Memorandum, — That this book was much abused by my 
Lord Percie's soldiers when they were quartered here in 
Odstock, 16 October, 1644." Not many months later, this 
same Lord Percy, together with fifty of his roystering 
knaves, was captured at Andover by Sir William Waller 
and Oliver Cromwell, who were then acting in conjunction, 
Cromwell being second in command. Sir William happened 
just then to be suffering from some temporary ailment, and 
therefore requested his subordinate officer to take his place 
as entertainer, and show all proper civility to their distin- 
gmshed prisoner. Cromwell did so; and ckmng the con- 
vivialities was not long in discovering that one of Percy's 
youthful attendants was possessed of a fairer countenance 
than usually fell to the lot of pages and rough-riders ; but to 
make sure that his susj^icions were correct, he proposed that 
the young man should entertain the company with a song. 
The song was sung, and the performer executed the task 
•' with such a daintiness " as to leave no further doubt on 
Cromwell's mind, who soon after took occasion to turn to 
Lord Percy and to remark that "as his lordship was a 
warrior, he did wisely to be accompanied by Amazons." It 
could hardly have been in the gentle page's presence that 
Oliver thus declared his mind. His habitual com-tesy and 
gentlemanly breeding are sufficient warrant for this assump- 
tion, — the more so, as it is of Percy and of him alone we are 
finally assured that "it was with some confusion he did 
acknowledge that the youth was a damsel." 

Waller's vanity (it is to him we are indebted for the above 
anecdote,) must have been considerably gratified when, in 
after years, he could thus sit down in his chimney-corner and 
talk over scenes in which the great Protector had acted a 
part secondary to his own. Alluding to the impetuous 
manner in which Oliver swooped upon the regiment of Mr. 
Sheriff Long at Devizes in the spring of 1645, he says, 



314 ANECDOTES OF 

" And Ikto I cannot Lut mention the wonder whicli I have 
oftlinies liad to see thia Eagle in his eiroy. He at this time 
had never shown extraordinaiy parts, nor do I think that ho 
did himself Leliove that ho had them ; for although he was 
Llunt, he did not bear himself with pride or disdain. As an 
officer he was obedient, and did never dispute my orders nor 
argue upon them. Ho did indeed seem to have great 
cunning ; and wliile he was cautious of his own words, not 
putting forth too many lest they should betray his thoughts, 
ho made others talk till he had as it were sifted them, and 
known their most intimate designs. A notable instance was 
his discovering in one short conversation with Captain Giles, 
a great favourite with the Lord General [Essex] and whom 
he most confided in, that although his words were full of 
zeal and his actions seemingly brave, yet his heart was not 
with the cause. And, in fine, this man did shortly after join 
the enemy at Oxford with three and twenty stout fellows." 

Sir William AValler, notwithstanding his own quondam 
advocacy of "The Cause," died in the odom- of sanctity, 
being interred beneath a stately monument in Bath abbey ; 
but not before he had given good evidence of his ro-conver- 
sion by persecuting a (iuaker, and by displaying a dropping- 
down-doadness of homage on the restoration of royaKsm. 
Lord Mordaunt writing to the exiled Prince 30 March, 1G59, 
says, — " Sir AVilliam Waller received your instructions with 
kissing tlio paper, and this expression, — Let him be damned 
that serves not this Prince with integrity and diligence." 

The faithful Vald. 

"No man," says the proverb, "is a hero to his valet." 
This was never uttered in respect of Oliver Cromwell. 
During the severe illness which prostrated the Lord-(^ieneral 
in Edinl)urgh, ho was watclied and tended by a most dinoled 
French servant named Duret, one who heartily loved and 
appreciated him, and was in return treated with unreserved 
eonlidonce. Cromwell not only committed to him the man- 
agement of domestic affairs while camjiaigniug, but during 
this illness ho would receive food and medicine from no other 
liand. This unremitting assiduity on tlie part of iJuret, 
involving as it did, ja-otracted midnight watchings, liad at 
length a fatal result for the watcher himself, and Oliver as 
he advanced towards recovery, had the intense grief to 
discover that his friend was rapidly sinking. It was now 
his own turn to act as nm-se and spiritual consoler. Dm-et, 
for himself, cheerfully accepted his fate ; ho was quite satis- 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 315 

fied to lay down his lii'o in such a cause and for such a 
master ; and he merely desired that the case of his mother, 
sister, and two nephews might he taken into consideration ; 
they Avere still in i'rance, and were in some measure depen- 
dent on liis services. " I will look to that," said Cromwell. 
" ]\Iy obligations to you are so great that it were impossible 
for me to do otherwise." Immediately, therefore, after 
Buret's dcatli, a message was sent to the smwivors, begging 
the entire family to come to h]ngland ; and at the same 
time Cromwell gave to his wife, by letter, a full account of 
the affair, representing that she should treat the strangers on 
their amval in London in a manner corresponding with her 
just sense of the merits and good oftices of the deceased ; and 
that as it was entirely to Diu'ot's care, pains, and watchings, 
that he owed the preservation of his own life, she would pro- 
portion the kindness shewn to them to the love which she 
bore to himself as her husband. The Duret family at once 
accepted the invitation, and were welcomed into Mrs. Crom- 
well's household with the utmost cordiality. Madame Dm'et 
was of course promoted to her table, the sister became a 
maid of honour, and the two ne[)hews occupied the post of 
pages. Croinwell had still an arduous campaign to com- 
plete, which kept him in Scotland for several weeks longer ; 
and it was not imtil after lighting the battle of Worcester 
that he at last found an opportunity of revisiting the sanc- 
tuary of homo, and of ratifying by his pi>rsonal salutation 
the new domestic alliance. The scene at tliat moment nmst 
have been redolent of Cluistian pathos. Tlio mutual tears 
and incoherent greetings had an eloijuence of their own ; for 
it was through the medium of his daughters who were better 
skilled in the French language than himself, that he testified 
to the old lady how lie rejoiced at her arrival ; assming her 
at the same time that as she had lost her first son in liis 
service, he would do his possible to lill the vacancy as lier 
second son. Moreover lie took pains to acquire sundry 
French phrases wherewith to salute her whenever they might 
chance to meet. 

The name of ])uret, which is not uncommon in the West 
of France, prevails principally in the Charente and in the 
Charente-Inferieure. Mr. Armand W. Duret of 93 St. 
Augustin's Itoad, London, N.W. claims descent from the 
physician of that name Avho attended Louis IX. Claude 
Duret, John Duret, and Peter Dm-et, are the names of 
authors, in the Brit. Mus. Library, ranging from 1G23 to 
1731, principally ou medical topics. 



316 ANECDOTES OF 



The dcatJi-ixiialfi/ for li-iflcx. 

While Oliver was detained in Scotland by the siege of 
EdinLurgh, one of those scandalous legal atrocities, against 
which he habitually protested, Avas enacting at Oxford ; 
where, on the nebulous charge of procuring miscarriage, a 
young girl w^as actually couciemned to be hung. After the 
execution, a group of qitaiii experts were preparing to dissect 
her, when suddenly the lass waked up ; and by the aid of, or 
rather perhaps in spite of, restoratives, she recovered perfect 
health. Carrington (the earliest biographer of the Pro- 
tectorate) who relates the story, rejoices that the hand of 
God thus intervened to prevent a fatal termination, — " It not 
being His will or pleasure that during the government of 
the justest of conquerors there should an act of so high 
injustice pass as the barbarous condemning and putting to 
death so innocent a creature as the event proved this silly 
maiden to be." 

Says Oliver to his second Parliament. — The truth of it is, 
there are wicked and abominable laws which it will be in 
your power to alter. To hang a man for six and eight pence, 
and I know not what ; to hang for a trifle, and acquit 
mm'der ; is in the ministration of the law through the ill 
framing of it. I have known in my experience abominable 
mm'ders acquitted. And to see men lose their lives for petty 
matters, this is a thing Grod Avill reckon for ; and I wish it 
may not lie upon this nation a day longer than you have an 
opportunity to give a remedy." Speech V. CarhjJe. Yet 
more than a centmy after the utterance of the above, starving 
men and women SAVung in the Old Bailey for such offences 
as Avhitening copper coins in order to pass them as silver. 

Church mufilafion. 

The folloAving jest is attributed to CromAvell in a modern 
Description of Cork. In this beautiful city, the local his- 
torian informs us, the Lord Greneral sojourned for a few days 
in 1650, and while there, converted the church-bells into 
cannon, — observing in reply to a remonstrance, that since 
gunpoAvder Avas the invention of a priest, he thought the 
best use for bells Avas to convert them into canons. " The 
jest of the Lord-General not having been either very hmnour- 
ous or A^ry brilliant," adds the Avritor, " it may be as Avell to 
preserve the only one, it is believed, perpetrated by him in 
Cork." 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 317 

This charge of belfry-spoliation has often been made by 
local antiquaries from ignorance of the law of medieval war- 
fare on this especial point. The following mandate issued by 
King Charles after taking Bristol will explain the matter, and 
exculpate all parties. 

" 1643. August 7. Whereas by the custom of war, those 
places that stand out after summons to surrender, forfeit 
their bells to the General of the Ordnance, and the city of 
Bristol hath withstood our summons, — Therefore the church- 
wardens and parishioners of the various parishes in Bristol 
are hereby ordered to come in and compound for their bells, — 
"We being unwilling that they should lose so necessary an or- 
nament. And hereunto we expect their obedience as they or 
any of them shall answer the contrary at their perils. 
Charles, R." 

In like manner, it will be remembered (See page 234,) that 
Sir William Lockhart, while enumerating his expences on 
taking possession of Dunkirk, says, " I must also pay the 
cannoniers of the army for the bells of the town, which is their 
indisputable due at all rendition of places." Possibly the Cork 
legend was born of the fact that there really was at one time a 
proposition before the House for the demolition of some of the 
Cathedrals, and a suggestion made that in such cases the bells 
should be converted into ordnance for the fleet. It passed in 
the negative. Commons' Journals. 9 July, 1652. And a 
permission to the Mayor and Deputy Lieutenants of Exeter, 
in 1642, to cast their bells into ordnance, in case of assault, 
may be read in the Lords' Journals, V. 487. 

But not only the capture of bells, but every other form of 
church-spoliation, wherever found in England, is habitually 
attributed to the personal agency of Cromwell. All else is 
forgotten but the destroying maul of this fabulous giant, 
whose solitary hobgoblin figure looming out of the dark ages, 
has put all other spoilers to flight. Of which indeed we may 
say that it is a doctrine so long and so firmly fixed in the 
sexton- mind as to be fairly excusable in a parochial cicerone ; 
but it is not so excusable in other official persons of clerical 
grade, who ought to know better, but who make it a part of 
their religion to nurse the prejudice. It was rather the pre- 
vious age, namely that of the Reformation, which witnessed 
these defacements. Concerning which, let a statement from 
Godwyn's Catalogue of Bishoj)s, published forty years before 
the Civil War, be heard respecting Ely Cathedral (under 
whose shadow the Cromwells dwelt). Bishop Hotham, he 
tells us, " lieth entombed in a monument of alabaster that 
was some time a very stately and goodly building but now 



818 



ANECDOTES OF 



[IGOl] sliamofnlly (lofaced, as are also all other monumonis 
of the f'liurch." One of these other monmnents, thai, of 
Bishop I'arnet, had lost its head. TJie modei'ii guide at Ely, 
mindful of the historic vicinify of the rchel Jiouse, would 
probably give a very different explanation of the affair. 

Whatever may have been the fanaticism of some few icono- 
clasts, no wanton destruction either in res])ect of churches, 
towns, or country-houses, is chargeable on \h(- Cromwell famil}'. 
It is ev(>n told of OHver that when the f'aiTuiment dismantled 
Nottingham castle, he was heartily vexed at it, and told 
Colonel llutehinson that if he had been in the House when 
it was voted, he would not have suffered it to be done. Nor in- 
deed are the Parliamentarinns, as a rule, to be credited with the 
house-burnings and town-burnings belonging to that period. 
Such actions were almost without an exception the work of the 
Royalists, and were frequently quite independent of the 
accidents or exigeneies of war. This is not a statement loosely 
made, but is the result of a pretty close and jtrolonged in- 
vestigation of the recorded facts. Prince Eupert, a ruthless 
foreigner, and one who ncquired the sobriquet of Prince 
Robber, first set the exaniple by burning Cirencester and 
Marlborough and devastating l^'awley Court belonging to 
Bulstrodo AVhitelock. Then followed the destruction of Bridg- 
north, unhousing 300 families and consuming £00,000 worth 
of property. AYooburn in Bedfordshire was treated in like 
manner in 1GI5, and in the year following the combined 
towns of Grreat Faringdon and Westbrook in Berkshire Avere 
burnt, to the value of ,±;5(),07G as appraised by judges of 
assize at Reading. These afflictions, together with the sack 
of Leicester, the Parliament endeavoured from time to time 
to mitigate by the action of a " Committee of Burnings " and 
by ordering public contributions for the sufferers to be made 
either throughout the realm or in a group of counties. In 
respect of Leicester, see the Lords' Jounuih, VIT. GG5, — the 
Bridgenorth affair, Ibn/. IX. 057, — Great Fariugdon, Ibid. 
X. 485. Consult also the Commons' Journals. 

Yet, let but a tradition survive in any domestic history 
that the family estate was wrecked in the Civil Wars, and it 
will almost invariably be found that such tradition, under 
cover of popular ignorance, is made to do duty for the wrong 
party. The house, so the family annalist, informs us, was burnt 
by the rebels, and the money estate was all lost in the royal 
cause. Take for instance the ease of Drake of Ashe. The 
Drakes, like the families of navnl heroes generally, went in 
roundly for the Parliament, and the iietition of Lady Ellen 
Drake {Commons' JoKrnah^ V. 508) as well as a mass of 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 319 

documents among tlie Composition Papers, all attest tliat tlie 
destroyer of tlio family mansion was the Cavalier Lord Pawlet, 
wlio had to make ample restitution for the same. Yet the 
modern annalist of tlie Drake family tells us that it was the 
work of the rebels. BurJ>c's extinct and dormant harontitage. 
So of Duckett of Hartham, and many others. 

The great fire of Marlhoroiig/i. 

Just a week after Cromwell's dissolution of the Long Par- 
liament, the town of Marlborough in Wiltshire was acciden- 
tally devastated by fire. The proximity of the two events Avas 
not lost upon the royalists, one of whom wrote thus. — " The 
town of Marlborough was reduced almost to ashes on the 2Stli 
of April ; an ominous commencement of this Incendiary's 
usurpation, whoso red and fiery nose was the burden of many 
a cavalier's song." Heath's Chronicle, 343. 

Thomas Eyre, tJio mnyor of the ruined town, prompt!}^ 
made his appeal to " the Lord-General Cromwell," as to the 
one practical saviour spontaneously recogniz;ed by all parties ; 
and the result was that by means of a public collection in- 
stituted throughout England and Wales, not many months 
elapsed before the town arose phoenix-like from its ashes. 
One of the houses to this day displays the date of 16''j4. 

Tliero was no town in England which from first to last 
throughout the struggle had given more pronounced adliorence 
to the protestant and parliamentary cause. Cromwell, there 
can be no doubt, was thoroughly versed in the history of 
their trials and sacrifices ; and by the aid of a shadowy tra- 
dition we may picture him visiting the place after the fire, 
making his inspection of the damage in company with Mr. 
Mayor, and observing that the old Town Hall (which from 
its isolated position had escaped destruction) was but an ig- 
noble afPair, offering to erect a new one at his own charges. 
The people of Marlborough were not unmindful of the benefit ; 
and two years later, when another national subscription was 
set on foot by the Protector, namely that for the persecuted 
Protestants of Piedmont, they testified tlieii' sympathy for the 
object by gatliering a far larger sum than was furnished by 
any other place in the county, Salisbury excepted.* An 
extract from the mayor's letter to Cromwell, in behalf of his 
fellow-townsmen, on the day after the calamity, will further 



* The town of Marlborough, biu'y gave £88 17s. 5(1. No other 
including its suburb of Preshufce, town in Wiltshire gave so much 
contributed £45 13s. 3d. Salis- as £15. 



320 ANECDOTES OF 

exhibit the correspondence of feeling between the two parties. 
— " Too much," says he, " cannot be said for them ; they 
being a people more generally well-afTected than any town 
I know in this county. Yet being confident that your Ex- 
cellency's ear will be open to them, and also that you will be 
ready to act for them, I shall only in reference to them say thus 
much more, — that the very day when this afiiiction bef el them, 
the godly people of the town and many of the country were 
together seeking Grod (according to your desire in your late 
Declaration) for His presence with you in your councils, that 
jou might be endowed with the spirit of wisdom and counsel 
from Him, for the management of the great and weighty affairs 
before you, to the honom* of His name, and the good and en- 
couragement of His people in settling justice and righteousness 
in this nation, — being confident that this was the end you pro- 
posed to yourself in the dissolution of the Parliament. In the 
truth and reality of this I am so well satisfied that for my own 
part, as I shall not cease daily to pray for you upon the same 
account as is aforementioned, so I resolve, through the assist- 
ance of the Ijord, to stand and fall with you, and according to 
my mean abilities, by all ways and means, with the hazard of 
my life and fortune, to give m}^ utmost assistance to promote 
those ends which I thought it my duty to express. And 
having so done, shall remain, my lord, your Excellency's 
humble and faithful servant, Thomas Eyre." 

Not even the apologists for the Lord-general have suf- 
ficiently set forth the unanimity with which messages of con- 
gratidation and encouragement poured in upon him from 
constituencies, churches, and ships-crews, just after his daring 
act of dissolving the Parliament, and in anticipation of the select 
convocation which he was about to summon. To assist him 
in this latter enterprize, approved names were, at his request, 
forwarded to him from the various counties ; and this circum- 
stance furnishes us with an occasion, just for once, of placing 
in combination those of Oliver Cromwell and John Bunyan. 

Jo/in Bunyan. 

The address of 1653 to the Lord-General from Bedford- 
shire is signed by nineteen persons including John Bimyan. 
They express to him their joyful hopes that he would prove 
to be the hand of Gfod in rescuing the many wlio had long 
groaned under the sad oppression of the late Parliament, 
[which means imder Presbyterian intolerance.] And they 
recommend as suitable representatives of their county, 
Nathaniel Taylor and John C^roke, being then Justices of the 



OLIVEB, CROMWELL. 321 

peace for Bedfordshire, 13 Maj, 1653. The affair proves 
incidentally that John Bunyan was already a prominent 
man among the religious party of his county, which is the 
more remarkable as he was then only twenty-five years of 
age. Of the two gentlemen nominated as above, Nathaniel 
Taylor was accepted, but John Croke gave place to Edward 
Cater. The Convention thus organised, " the hundred and 
thirty eight notables," as they have been otherwise desig- 
nated, was, perhaps, the best Parliament that ever sat, 
striving, says Carlyle, " earnestly, nobly, and by no means 
unwisely, as the ignorant histories teach. But the farther it 
advanced towards real Christianism in human affairs, the 
louder grew the shrieks of sham Christianism everywhere 
profitably lodged there." This is high praise, and is fortified 
by the fact that this Parliament voted the abolition of the 
court of chancery, taking marriage out of priests' hands, and 
sweeping away both tithes and advowsons. No wonder that 
the fashionable historians have ever since united in casting 
ridicule on this assembly, and calling it the Barebones-Par- 
liament, though well aware that there was no such name on 
the list. But let Barbone alone. He, too, will have a re- 
surrection. 

His courtesy in dispensing with the ceremony of hissing hands. 

" Our Lord Protector gave a noble audience to the Dutch 
ambassadors last Saturday. His part was just as the Kings' 
used to be, only kissing his hand excepted." From an inter- 
cepted letter, March, 1654. The testimony of the three am- 
bassadors themselves, BeverniDg, Nieuport, and Jongestall, 
is still more graj)hio. After the final interchange of friendly 
expressions, in the banquetting-room at Whitehall, — "we 
presented unto his Highness twenty of our gentlemen, who 
went in before us, being followed by twenty more, to have 
the honom* to kiss his hand. But instead thereof, his High- 
ness advanced near the steps and bowed to all the gentlemen 
one by one, and put out his hand to them at a distance, by 
way of congratulation." He seems to have yielded to the 
practice of kissing hands on a subsequent occasion, when 
a Frencli embassy arrived in May 1654, but it is distinctly 
stated that the gentlemen " desired it." Cromwelliana, 141. 

It need hardly be added that the Protector was never under 
any temptation to degrade either himself or his fellow-coun- 
trymen by " touching for the King's evil," — for the very 
good and sufficient reason that the royal healer was himself 
alive, and resident in Holland, fm^nished with all the 



322 ANECDOTES OF 

orthodox attribute,^, and "hedged" about with the requisite 
" divinity." 

In 1653, some person addressing him in St. James's Park, 
and omitting what was called "the homage of the hat," 
induced him to relate, with a smile, a circumstance which he 
remembered to have witnessed on the same spot some years 
back, when the late King was once walking there. The 
Duke of Buckingham on that occasion was advancing towards 
liis Majesty without imcovering, whereupon an indignant 
Scot in the King's train at once struck off the Duke's hat. 

But while Oliver gracefully waived the accustomed forms 
of personal worship, he was not solicitous to abate the inno- 
cent parade of sovereignty which might be supposed duo to 
the nation's represent ati^-e ; — for instance, — '* My lord of 
Leda gavo his adieu yesterday to my Lord Protector, who 
sent his own coach of six white horses. Certain it is, as 
many told me, that none of the English Kings had ever any 
such. And with it, ten more [coaclies] of six horses, with 
many cavaliers. So was Leda conducted and re- conducted ; 
but what he did [at the interview] is not known." James 
Barcy io Dr. Joint SniitJi of Dunkirky 13 Jiow 1655. See 
also Carlyle's narrative of the ceremonious reception of the 
Swedish ambassador in Jidy 1655. 

Hifi lore of (inimah. 

The epieedium b}" Andrew Marvell says, 

" All, all is gone of our or Ins delight 
In horses fierce, wild deer, or armoni' bright." 

Writing to Cornet Squire just after Gainsborough fight, 
he says, " I will give you all you ask for that black you won 
last fight." Two months later. Squire captures another 
horse, for which also he makes application, — "I will give 
you sixty pieces for that black you won at Horncastle, if you 
hold to a mind to sell him, for my son, who has a mind 
to him." In after days Longland his agent at Leghorn and 
Sir Tho. Bendysh in Turkey busied themselves in procuring 
Barbary horses. Races continued in Hyde Park during the 
Protectorate ; and Dick Pace, tho owner of divers horses v.-ho 
live in racing chronicles, was the Protector's stud-groom. 
His adventure in the Park when attempting to drive his own 
coach-horses is too well known to need repetition. We there- 
fore pass to the "wild deer" mentioned by Marvell. This 
probably refers to the twelve reindeer, which together with 
their two Laplander diivers, were sent by the Queen of 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 323 

Sweden in lGo4. Src BuJsti-ode W/titcIocke's nrorafice. Oliver 
IS also said to have " fallen in love with the company '' of Sir 
James T.ong of Wiltshire, a gentleman eminent as a natu- 
]^,\, Ttt"^' ^^"^ ^^§"l^^"i8' f^^^ys of 1645, this knight, then 
►bJienlt ol Wilts, was togetlier M'ith his entire reo-iment 
jomtly captm-ed by Cromwell and Waller, near Devizes' 
Sir James is described by his friend Aubrev as orator, soldier, 
historian, and romancer, as excelling in the arts of fencing, 
falconry, horsemanship, and i\\Q stndy of insects,— in short, a 
very accomplished gentleman. The belligerents probably 
had notmet since the scrimmage at Devizes placed Sir James 
m a private position, till one day when Oliver (now Pro- 
tector) hawking on Hounslow-heath recognized his old anta- 
gonist who we may suppose was engaged in the like pastime. 
Ihe knights discourse was so skilfully adjusted to the 
altered state of affairs, that Oliver forthwith fell in love witli 
his company, and commanded him to wear his sword, and to 
meet him again when they should next fly then- hawks. All 
which caused some of the stricter cavaliers to look upon Sir 
James with an evil eye. Aubrey. 

His opinions on agriculture. 

John Aubrey eays,— " I heard Oliver Cromwell, Protector 
at dinner at Hampton Court in 1657 or 8, tell the Lord 
Arundel of Wardour and the Lord Fitz- Williams that he 
had been in all tlie counties of England, and that the Devon- 
shire husbandry was the best. And at length we Tin Wilt- 
shire] have obtained a great deal of it." Hartlib, a Pole 
who translated Child's Treatise on tlie agriculture of Flan- 
ders, ol^tained a pension from the Protector. It was, no 
doubt, the canals of Flanders which suggested the scheme for 
uniting the Bristol Avon with the Thames ; which Captain 
Irancis Matthew having illustrated with a map, the Pro- 
tector would have put into execution, had he lived lone- 
enough. Nafiira/ Hist, of Wilts. A hundred and thirty 
years later, it was accomplished by John Rennie. 

His natural eloquence. 

Bishop Bm-net, on the authority of Lieut. -gen. Drummond 
(afterwards Lord Strathallan) mentions that, m Drummond's 
presence, Cromwell engaged in a long dlscom-se with a group 
of fecots commissioners, on the nature of the regal power 
according to the principles of Mariana and Buchanan; and 
Drummond s conclusion was that Cromwell had manifestly 



324 ANECDOTES OF 

the better of the commissioners at tlieir o^vn weapon and 
upon tlieir own principles. Indeed, a modern French writer 
declares him to have been the only eloquent man in the 
kingdom. " En effet," saj^s Villemain, " dans la Eevoliitiou 
Ano-laise, il n'y ent qu'un homme eloquent, et c'est celui qui 
aurait pu se passer de I'etre, grace a son ^pee, — Cromwell. 
ITorniis Cromwell, eloquent parco qu'il avait de grandes 
idees et de grandes passions, la Revolution Anglaise u'lnsj)!- 
rait que des rheteurs theologiques, en c^ui la verite du 
fanatisme meme etait faussee par un verbiage convenu." 
Cours de Uttemture Fraiicaisc. 

Beverning, one of the Dutch ambassadors, writing home 
in 1G5-3 says, " Last Saturday I had a discourse with his 
Excellency above two hours, no one else being present. He 
spoke his own language so distinctly that I could understand 
him. I answered again in Latin." 

Touching the various schemes adopted during his brief 
tenure of power, for the advancement of learning, it is quite 
unnecessary to enlarge. A single passage from Antliony a 
Wood, a very iniexceptional witness in a case of this nature, 
may suffice. In his biographical notice of Henry Stubbs, 
keeper of the Bodleian, who took his degree in the days 
of Owen, he remarks, — "While he continued under-graduate, 
it was usual with him to discourse in the public schools very 
fluently in the Greek tongue. But since the King's restora- 
tion we have had no such matter ; which shows that educa- 
tion and discipline were more severe then than afterwards, 
when scholars were given more to liberty and frivolous 
studies." 

Litcrvicir n-ith Arclihliihop UsJier. 

Tlie Irish prelate was considerably his senior ; and this 
circumstance combined with his fervid churchism enabled 
him to present a defiant front when in colloquy with the 
Protector, who nevertheless was most generously disposed 
towards him, and anxious to have a com-teous interview. 
Usher's own account is that ho at last consented to accept 
the invitation only lest further evil towards his brethren 
should grow out of his refusal. At tlieir first meeting, the 
Protector's opening observations al)Out advancing tlie Pro- 
testant interest in Europe appeared to the Archbishop little 
better than "canting discourse"; and as he was evidently 
too much of an enthusiast to take his (the Archbishop's) 
advice in the matter, a civil dismissal closed the affair. On 
the next ocoasiou, the Archbishop, carrying in his hand 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 325 

a petition for enlarged liberty to the clergy in the matter of 
joreaching, found Oliver under the doctor's liauds, wlio was 
removing a boil from his breast. After begging his guest to 
be seated, Oliver went on, — " If this core were once out, I 
should be quickly well." — Arclib. " I doubt the core lies 
deeper. There is a core at the heart that must be taken out, 
or else it will not be well." — Oliver, "Ah, so there is indeed," 
and sighed. The Ai'chbishop finally gathering that the om-b 
was not to be removed from the plotting portion of the 
royalist clergy, departed to his home in fierce grief, and 
placed on record his indignant judgment, — " This false man 
has broken his word. Koyalty will now speedily return." 
It is commonly added by his partisans, that at his death 
which followed shortly after, the Protector decreed a public 
funeral for him in Westminster Abbey, but left the family 
to bear the charges ; — which Henry Cromwell's testimony 
indirectly shews to be destitute of all credibility. See also 
the Mcrcurius Politicus. March and April 1656. 

An ecclcsiadical squabble. 

Richard Byfield the rector of Sutton in Surrey contested 
the repairs of the church with his patron Sir John Evelj-n of 
Grodstone. To put an end to the scandal, the Protector got 
them together in his presence ; w]ien Sir John charged the 
minister with reflecting on him in his sermons, which of 
course Byfield repelled. Oliver then addressed the bellige- 
rents in terms so pathetic that all present were in tears. 
Said he, "I doubt. Sir John, there is something indeed amiss. 
The word of God is penetrating ; and if, as I suspect, it has 
found you out, you will do well to search your ways." He 
succeeded in making them good friends before parting, and 
to mollify the knight's chagrin, ordered his secretary Malyn 
to pay him £100 towards the repairs. Byfield was after- 
wards one of the ejected of 1662. Had John Milton sat in 
the moderator's chair on this occasion, instead of Oliver, the 
award might possibly have been reversed. He ]iad very 
little patience for clerical money claims. 

The imnoncd Letters. 

Queen Christina the daughter of the renowned Gustavus 
Adolphus, having abandoned Protestantism and the Crown 
of Sweden at the same time, made the tour of Europe in the 
character of a fast young lady, occasionally giving currency 
to a little scandal by riding abroad in male attire, and still 



326 WECDOTES OF 

further rif^kmg lior puLlic credit hy fijiiiuvliig at the assas- 
f^iuation of an Italian Marquis in her service. Letters 
from abroad make constant alhisions to her escapades. One 
writes, — " The King [Charles II.] and his brother are gone 
to visit the Queen of Sweden. All possible means are iised 
to divert her from wintering here ; but it is thought nothing 
will do with her who gLirieth in her late action of causing 
one of her gallants to be mmxlered in her sight in the gallery 
of Fontainbkau." Moreover, my lady-errant woidd fain 
have ridden a tilt at the Lord Protector himself, ■^^'hom she 
was everyAvhere defaming. To play the part of another 
Judith towards him would, perhaps she thought, be a service 
well pleasing to her new-found friends the Jesuits. At any 
rate the proposal might possibly be made to approximate 
towards a practical jest at a moment when he was the most 
prominent object in Em-ope. She once asked Lockhart to 
enclosp in one of his despatches a letter from herself to the 
Protector, professedly in behalf of some unfortunate Catholic 
prisoner in Ireland ; but Lockhart having his suspicions 
awakened after the letter was gone, sent forward a warning 
note to Thmioe, suggesting that any papers arriving from 
the Queen of Sweden addi'essed to his Highness, should first 
be read and then burnt. This letter of warning, like so 
many others, was intercepted by Stuart emissaries, yet its 
piu'port reached the Coimcil. In May 1G07 she sent over an 
agent, le Sieur Philippi Passerini, who was announced to 
deliver dispatches into the Protector's hands, and to clear u^^ 
and explain to him various late passages in her government, 
especially the affair of the murdered marquis; — all which 
looked so very suspicious to the Protector's Council that they 
entreated him to decline the interview. He laughed at 
their fears ; but as the presence of a translator would be 
necessary, he consented that Mr. Sofrotavy Whitolocko shoidd 
fulfil that oflice. Whitulucke undertouii: it, assming the 
Protector that he was quite prepared to encounter the poison- 
test by being the first to handle the papers. Poisoned letters, 
poisoned gloves, poisoned perfumes, had at that period a 
strong hold on the superstitious mind. In the present case 
the wandering Queen had probably nothing more tragic in 
view than a small addition to her stock of gossip. Of Lock- 
hart himself a report was cii'culated at the time of his death 
that ho had fallen a victim to a pair of poisoned gloves ; and 
Bishop Burnet mentions poisoned snuft as one of the sus- 
pected agencies in accelerating the death of Charles 11. So 
Dryden in his prologue to Ccesar Borgia says, 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 827 

'' You know no poison but plain ratsbane here ; 
Death's more refined and better bred elsewhere. 
They have a civil way in Italy, 
J3y smelling a perfume to make you die ; 
A trick would make you lay your snuffbox by." 

His patronage of music and paiiiti)i(j. 

The Protector of England had many personal traits in 
common with the Continental Reformer Martin Luther. 
Zwingle's zeal in destroying pictiu-es and organs in the 
churches of Zimch has often been contrasted with the conduct 
of Luther who systematically protected and honoured art. As 
Cailyle has said, — " Death defiance on the one hand, and 
such love of music on the other ; I could call these the two 
opposite poles of a great soul. Between these two, all great 
things had room." And again, — " Who is there that in 
logical words can express the ell'ect that music has on us ? — 
a kind of inarticulate unfathomable speech, which leads us to 
the edge of the Infinite, and lets us for moments gaze into 
that." Hero icorship. 

Cromwell's order that Dr. AVilson should regularly give 
his music leetm-e at Oxford, though passed over by "Walton, 
is commented on in an essay in the Edinhuryh Review 
No. 193. John Hingstou, a scholar of Orlando Gibbons, 
after being in the service of Charles I., became organist to 
Cromwell at a pension of £100 a j^ear, and instructed his 
daughters in music. His portrait Avas in the music school at 
Oxford. Bvayhrolics Fepys, 10 Dec. 1667. The first step 
towards the revival of dramatic music after the wars, took 
place in 1653, in the performance of Shirley's mask of Cupid's 
death ; and three years later Davenant obtained a license to 
open a theatre for operas. A modern chronicler of the town 
of Tewkesbm'}^ while gossiping about its Abbey, narrates as 
follows. — '' The organ now placed in a gallery between two 
of the pillars in the nave, beneath Avhich is the principal en- 
trance to that portion of the church appropriated for divine 
service, is not more distinguished for its exterior appearance 
and great powers than for the singularity of its history. It 
originally belonged to Magdalen College, Oxford. Oliver 
Cromwell, who was fond of music and particularly of that of 
an organ, which was proscribed under his government, was so 
delighted with the harmony of this instrument, that when it 
was taken down from its station in the college, according to 
the pm-itanical humour of the times as an abominable agent 
of superstition, he had it conveyed to Hampton Court, where it 
was placed in the great gallery for his amusement. It remained 



328 ANECDOTES OF 

there till the Hestoration, when it was sent hack 1 o Oxford ; 
bnt another organ having heen presented to the college, it was 
in the year 1737 remoA'ed to Te wkesh luy . ' ' The local Cicerone 
of TeAvkesbnry further avers that this Avas the instrument on 
which John Milton was in the habit of performing for the 
delectation of the Protector's family, — a perfectly possible 
case ; and were it authenticated, a very welcome fact ; for it 
would be the fm-nishing of one instance, in the absence of 
any other, of Cromwell and Milton being sometimes found in 
personal communion. That such a scene lias been idealized 
in pictorial works is true enough, and with this illusion per- 
haps we must rest content. 

At the salo of Charles I.'s pictures, Oliver secm-ed the 
cartoous of Raphael to tlie Nation for £300 ; and fifty years 
later, AVilliam III. took measures for their preservation and 
restoration. In the interval they had a narrow' esca]ie. 
Charles II. was on the point of selling them to Louis XIV., 
and it was all that the Lord Treasurer could do to save them 
from the clutches of Barillon. Probably Danby found by 
Some other means the money they were to have raised. Report 
on the Cartoons. Times 31 Dec. 1858. Yet we fancy that 
even Charles II. would hardly have thrown away the chance 
which in more modern days presented itself to an English 
prime-minister of secio'ing the entire collection of paintings 
in the Pitti Palace. When the French republican armies 
were overrimning the north of Italy and commencing their 
wholesale system of plunder, the Grand-Duke of Florence 
offered this magnificent gallery to the English nation for the 
comparatively small sum of £100,000. Put English money 
just then was running out, as from a sluice, in support of 
church- and-king maxims, and Mr. Pitt had his scruples about 
diverting its course in favour of such inferior objects. 
Chambers's Edin. Jour. 24 April 1852. 

When the Dutch envoys arrived in March 1653 to settle 
the terms of peace, they seem to have brought over with 
them some of Titian's paintings. The intercepted letter of 
a royalist (name imknown) has the following. — " One that 
was present at the audience given in the ban quetting -house 
told me that Cromwell spent so much time looking at the 
pictures that he judged by it that he had not been much used 
heretofore to Titian's hand." Thurloc, II. 144. Might we 
not rather say that, the more he had seen of Titian, the longer 
he loved to linger ? 

Beyond the pencils employed to execute the jjortraits of 
the members of his family, there is not much evidence of 
Oliver's patronage of living artists. Three entries in the 



OLIVER CKOMWELL. 329 

Exchequer accounts for 1657 — 8 refer to a sum of £150 paid 
" to Mr. Francis Clyne for the designing of two stories by 
the tapestry-men." He also engaged a naval painter named 
Isaac Sailmaker, a pupil of Gildrop, to execute a sea-view of 
the English fleet as it lay before Mardyke during Sir John 
Reynolds' assault on that fort in 1657. See page 191. 
Sailmaker lived to paint the naval fight between Sir Greorge 
Rooke and the Count de Toidouse. 

On the 22 Feb. 1649, Ijieut. Gen. Cromwell reports from 
the Council of State. — That divers goods belonging to the 
State are in danger of being embezzled, (with other matters,) 
Whereupon it is, — Ordered, That the care of the public 
library at St. James and of the statues and pictures there be 
committed to the Council of State to be preserved by them." 
Commonfi' Jovrnah. 

The goods here referred to were the piettures, statues, house- 
hold furniture, and other personal estate of the late King ; 
■which the House thereupon ordered to be inventoried, ap- 
j)raised, and sold. The sale soon afterwards commenced, and 
went on till August 1663. The prices were fixed, but if 
more was offered, the highest bidder became the pm-chaser. 
Part of the goods were sold by inch of candle. The buyers, 
called " Contractors," signed a writing for the several sums ; 
but if they disliked the bargain, they were at liberty to with- 
draw from the engagement on payment of a fourth part of 
the sum stipulated. Among the contractors appears Mr. 
John Leigh, who, 1 August 1649, buys goods for the use of 
Lieut. Gen. Cromwell to the value of £109 5s. ; and on the 15th 
are sold to the lit. Hon. the Lady Cromw^ell goods to the 
amount of £200. [This last mentioned must have been the 
Baroness of Owkham, or possibly a Countess of Ardglas]. 
But no sooner was Oliver in possession of the supreme power 
than he not only put a stop to the sale, but detained from 
some of the pm-chasers goods for which they had contracted. 
Such at least was the athrmation made in a petition addressed, 
after the Protector's death, to the Council of State, by Major 
Edward Bass, Emanuel de Critz, William Latham, and Henry 
Willett, in behalf of themselves and divers others ; in which 
they represent, — " That in the year 1651 the petitioners did 
buy of the contractors for the sale of the late King's goods, the 
several parcels thereimder named, and did accordingly make 
satisfaction imto the treasurer for the same. But forasmuch 
as the said goods are in Whitehall, and some part thereof in 
Mr. Kinnersley's custody in keeping, the petitioners do humbly 
desire their Honours' order, whereby they may receive the 
said goods, they having been great sufferers by the late 



330 A>'ECDOTES OF 

Greneral CromwoU'ri dotainiug thereof." Tlif goods specified 
are Iiaugiugs and statues, the latter adoruing the gardens at 
WhitehalL This charge against the Protector of something 
little short of felony is one which there are j^robably now no 
means of adjusting. Had the petitioners made their apjieal 
during his lifetime, w e might have had an honest explanation. 
See AValpole's Aiwcdofcs of Painting 

"Oliver Cromwell at Hampton-Court" is the title of a 
paper lately contributed to the Gentleman's Magazine by 
John B. Marsh, containing a siu'vey of the state of the 
palace and park just before the Restoration, and an acoount 
of the drawing up of an Inventory of their contents by the 
Sergeant at arms Mr. C. Dendy and Mr. John Embroe. 
Derived from the State Paper Office. But as the association 
of the works of art there with the Protector's memory is no 
more than au accident which he shares with his predecessors 
and successors, Mr. Marsh's facts, though highly interesting 
throughout, hardly claim more specific notice in this place 
than may bo supplied by a few random extracts. 

According to tradition, Cromwell's bed-chamber was u]ion 
the ground-fioor, and had in the time of Charles I. been used 
as a day-room, — the same room where it is said the King 
with some of his childi'cn was once standing at the open win- 
dow when a gipsy woman solicited permission to tell the 
children's fortuue. The King refused ; whereupon she 
handed him a small mirror, in which with terror he beheld a 
severed head. To give the legend rotundity, she is further 
credited with a prophecy that Avhen a dog should die in that 
room, the King's son woidd regain his throne, — all which 
came to pass, — the dog being Cromwell's favourite. 

What is supposed to have been the King's own bed-room 
remained unoccupied and unfurnished during the time of 
Cromwell. 

The Earl and Lady Eauconberg's bed-room had been 
stripped before the inventory was taken ; but we are told that 
in one of their rooms, formerly occupied by the Duke of 
Richmond, the walls were hung about with old green per- 
petuauo ; and there Avere two black stools, three folding- 
stools, and one foot-stool covered with old green cloth. The 
Lady Frances Cromwell, widow of Mr. liich, had "lodgings" 
formerly the late King's cabinet room. Then followed a list 
of the furniture, all which had belonged to Charles I. There 
were three rooms used by Lady Claypoole as nurseries ; one 
was at the end of the passage leading to the tennis-com't ; a 
second was a portion of the Armoury, a room hung round 
"svith striped stuff ; and the third was a room formerly occu- 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 331 

pied by the '' Bishop of CanterLury," which, from its furui- 
ture and hangings, must have Leen tlie hirg(.\st and the best. 
This chamber contained one of the few looking-glasses re- 
maining in the palace (four only occurring in the entire 
inventory,) and is described as "One large looking-glass in 
an ebony frame, with a string of silk and gold." 

Colonel AYilliam Cromwell and John Howe the preacher 
had bod-rooms adjoining each other. Howe's room is "hung 
round in grej'-striped stuff, and contains one standing bed, 
with feather-bed and bolster, two blankets and a rug. The 
fm-nitm'e of the like striped stuff. One bed had a head-cloth 
and four cmiains. Dr. Clarke lay not far from Mr. Howe, 
and in his room were one half-headed bedstead, one deal 
table, and a form. Colonel Philip Jones, the comptroller, 
occupied as a bed-room that which had formerly been the 
lord chamberlain's." The lodgings of all the personal attend- 
ants of the above are also fully described. " In a room 
below stairs, where the servants dine, formerly called the 
vestry," there are five tables and eight forms. 

The gardens boasted of various sun-dials, a large fountain 
surmounted with a brass statue of Arethusa, and divers 
objects in marble. In the privy-garden there was a brass 
statue of Venus, ditto of Cleopatra, and marble statues of 
Adonis and Apollo. Of these, the Yenus is the only one 
now remaining, which the modern palace guide calls Diana. 
Greorge II. is credited with having removed the others to 
Windsor. 

Hampton Comi has been greatly altered since Cromwell's 
time. The Great Hall of course remains, in which were two 
organs, the larger one a gift from Cromwell's friend Dr. 
Goodwyn, president of Magdalen College, Oxford ; but the 
traditions of this part of the building belong to Wolsey's 
entertainments and subserpiont dramatic pageants, rather 
than to any scenes in the Puritan Protector's life. The 
Mantegna Grallery, with its vast pictm^es representing the 
triumphs of Julius Csesar (purchased by Charles I.) it is 
reasonably thought must have often attracted his notice ; 
though this is mere conjecture. But in respect of the 
Armomy, there is ground for thinking that the collection of 
specimens may have been in great part the result of his per- 
sonal taste, for Andi-ew Mar^ell tells us that he delighted in 
bright armoiu". 

" Here Edward VI. was born, and here his mother Jane 
Seymom- died. Here Queen Mary and Philip of Spain 
spent their dull honey-moon, and here Queen Elizabeth held 
her Christmas festivities. Jlere James I. sat as Moderator, 



332 ANECDOTES OF 

Mini listiMitMl to tilt' aij^unionts of Pn-sLjteriaus and Church- 
men, and hero Queen Anno his ^vii'e died in 1(518. Here 
(Jharles I. and Uueeu Henrietta passed their lioneymoon, 
and hero Charles I. "was kept a prisoner previous to liis trial 
and execution. Here Mary Cromwell was married to Earl 
Fauconherg in 1657, and here in 1058 died little Oliver and 
his mother the Lady Elizabeth Claypoole ; while almost at 
the same time Cromwell himself Avas seized Avith the illness 
Avhich eventually terminated in his death. 

The ThaitlxS(jivi)i(j-Dai/ in, 1654. 

Oliver's scheme for amalgamating the roi)ublics of England 
and Holland might, in the then state of Europe, have had 
brilliant results in furtherance of his peculiar Protestant 
policy, in which also the possession of Dunkirk Avould have 
proved a concmTcnt factor of high value. There were few 
l^ersons Avith Avhom apparently he more loved to converse than 
Avith the Dutch Envoy Beverning, Avho, more than any of 
his English Council, had an intelligent apprehension of the 
countless personal and provincial conflicts with which the 
north of Europe Avas torn and distracted. Hoav Avould these 
tAvo worthies have smiled at the fears Avhich Charles II. 's 
advisers professed to entertain Avben they told him that 
Dunkirk was untenable. Even the Dutch by themselves, 
could they have outbidden France in 1062, Avould have 
retained the place to this day. But such a master-stroke as 
Oliver contemplated Avas not written in the book of fate ; and 
we must be content Avith recording the sagacious policy AA'hich 
had to confine itself to a mere trade-concordat with his neigh- 
bours. It formed in fact the opening act of his foreign 
diplomacy ; and Ave OAve it to Ivaguenet's History of 
CroniAvell (as a sort of set-off against its numerous absiu-dities) , 
that his elaborate description and delineation of the medals 
struck in Holland on that occasion, testify to the value Avhich 
the States set upon a good imderstauding Avith the English 
Protector. Not less pronounced Avas the English Protector's 
OAvn appreciation of the event, as Avitnoss the following 
" Declaration, on the appointment of a day of thanksgiving 
for peace Avith tlie United Provinces of tlie Loav Countries." 

" Who can deny that this nation has been the recipient of 
blessings in AA-hich the arm of the Almighty has been signally 
manifest. Enquire of all the other nations, and Avithout 
doubt eacli Avill testify that the Lord by his Avonderful pro- 
vidences seems to say to England, Thou art my lirst-born and 
my delight among the peoples. And now He hath croAvned 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 333 

all His former benefits by giving ns this peace with om- 
neighbours of the United Provinces ; not only thereby stop- 
ping the effusion of blood, but supplying new forces by which 
we may mutually defend one another. And as all this 
demands renewed acknowledgment, Wo have judged it proper 
to appoint the ensuing second of June to sing His praises and 
to record om- thanks for the blessing of peace. 

' ' Nor let us forget on this day His other recent mercy. 
The land which of late was so parched and arid as to threaten 
us with famine and to cause the beasts of the field to languish 
for want of pasture, has now been so watered with showers 
that it promises more abundant fertility than ever, wherein 
we may trace the operation of His mercy ; first, causing us to 
lift up oiu' hearts in prayer, and immediately after poimng 
down this salutary rain ; that we may tm-n towards Him, 
and quit the sins which have hitherto had dominion over us. 
And om^ desire is that the faithful ministers who shall on that 
day speak to the people, will call these things to their 
remembrance. In expectation of which, we conclude with 
the words of the Psalmist in the 107th Psalm. "Oh that men 
would praise the Lord for his goodness, and for his wonderful 
works to the children of men," — with the seven succeeding 
verses descriptive of the wilderness being turned into water- 
sjirings, &c. [From a Freucli copy.^ 

While England and Holland were thus rejoicing for the 
peace, it was complained of by a writer from the Hague, that 
the two English preachers there, Mayden and Price, abstained 
from any reference to it in their sermons, but in their prayers 
maligned the Protector 

The rain referred to in the above proclamation had been 
preceded by a national fast, and it was one of the stories of 
the hour that " a notorious obstinate cavalier," who had busi- 
ness in the country, being asked why he was in such hot 
haste in calling for his horse and his boots, made answer, that 
whatever the present power prayed for, they had ; and he 
was anxious to be off before the ways were too foul for 
travelling. CromwelUana, 138. 

Oliver's wound. 

The proclamation offering a large reward for killing tlie 
Protector, issued in lGo4 by Charles II. has been duly 
noticed by Carlyle. Tliough no adventm^er ever laid claim 
to the glittering reward promised, there was a certain young 
gentleman who lived to taste the royal bounty in considera- 
tion of the inferior feat of wounding Oliver in battle. This 



•334 ANECDOTES OF 

was Marcus Trevor Esq. who declared himself the author of 
the sword-thrust ■^^'hich drew his hlood at Marston Moor ; 
and Trevor's claim being allowed at the Restoi^ation, he was 
(two years later) created Yiscount Duugannon. At the 
Archaeological fleeting at Shrewshuiy in 18'>">, a modern 
Viscount l)ungannon displayed from Brynkinault the original 
patent, being a richly emblazoned document in which 
Eichard St. George Ulster King of arms grants to the first 
Lord Dungannon a lion and a wolf as supporters, and recites 
that King Charles II. taking into consideration the faithful 
services of his beloved councillor Mark Trevor Esq. and par- 
ticularly his valiant action at the battle of Marston Moor, 
where, after many high testimonies of his valour and mag- 
nanimity, he that day personally encountered that arch-rebel 
and tyrant Oliver Cromwell and wounded him with his 
sword, had created the said Mark Trevor Viscount Dun- 
gannon. Dated 20 Sep. 1662. See also the Peerages under 
the article Downshirc. 

The story of his being shot at by IMiss Granville, on his 
passage into the City to dine with tlie Lord Mayor in 1654, 
has been discussed more than it merits. Haguenet, who was 
the first to print it, in his French History of the Protector, 
says that he derived it from the MS. of M. de Brosse, docteur 
de la faculty de Paris, an eye-witness of the event ; which 
MS. he was ready to show to any one who desired it. Ac- 
cording to om^ French authority, the young lady's lover, who 
was brother to the Duke of Buckingham, had fallen at the 
battle of St. Neot's by Cromwell's own hand. Hence her 
long-nursed revenge ; and until the above opportunity pre- 
sented itself, she practised pistol-shooting at a picture of 
Oliver. As the cavalcade passed her balcony on its way to 
the City, she discharged her weapon at something more sub- 
stantial than his picture, but the shot took effect only on the 
horse of his son Henry Cromv/ell ; whereupon she clelivered 
herself in an appropriate tragic speech ; and her attendants 
assuring those who were sent to arrest her that her mind had 
long been in a disordered state, the scene shifts to Grocers' 
Hall, where my Lord Mayor must have been verily guilt}' of 
thoughtless discom^tesy if he failed to congratulate his High- 
ness on his recent escape. On this point however the 
reporters are unaccountably silent, though otherwise the 
day's proceedings are graphically described in the Perfect 
Diurnal of Feb. to 13. 

Even that (so styled) amiable gentleman, Mr. Secretary 
Nicholas, saw no impropriety in the plan of assassination. 
" We have here seen,'' says he, writing to Lord Culpepper 



OLTVER CROMWELL. 335 

from Bruges " a most excellent treatise entitled, Killing no 
murder, dedicated to Cromwell, shewing both Scripture and 
many reasons that it is not only lawful out even necessary to 
kill him, being an usurper and a tyrant who ought no more 
to have any law than a wolf or a fox ; and I hear that 
Cromwell is no less fearful than Cain was after the murder of 
his brother Abel/' 

Fairfax's desertion. 

One of the deep sorrows of the Protector's latter days was 
the alienation of former friends. His secretary Thurloe, 
who perhaps more than any other of those about him, could 
estimate its depressing effect, is frequently quite touching in 
his narratives to Henry Cromwell of "the great man's" trials. 
He could bear with comparative indifference the barking of 
Cornet Day and John Sympson, who, preaching, as it was 
called, no farther off than Allhallows church, assailed the 
Government as "the thieves and robbers of Whitehall." 
But when more creditable divines resisted his project for the 
admission of Jews into thn country, and in a variety of 
ways checked his intelligent patriotism, Thurloe writes, — " I 
do assure you his Highness is put to exercise every day with 
the peevishness and wrath of some persons here. But the 
Lord enables him with comfort to bear the hai'd speeches and 
reproaches he is from day to day loaded with, and helps him 
to return good for q\\\, and goodwill for their hatred;— 
which certainly is the way to heap coals of fire on their head, 
to melt them and bring them into a better frame and tem- 
per." And again shortly after, — "His Highness meets 
wilh his trials here at home, of all sorts ; being under daily 
exercises from one hand or another. I wish he may not 
have occasion to say. My familiar friends in whom I trusted 
have lift up their heel against me. These things should 
make him and all his relations to depend the more upon Grod, 
and to take heed of all carnal confidences. Trials work 
patience, and patience experience, and experience hope. That 
hope will never make ashamed, but all hope in men will." 

Here is one of Carlyle's sketches. " Colonel Hutchinson, 
as his wife relates it, Hutchinson, his old battle-mate, coming 
to see him on some indispensable business, much against his 
will, — Cromwell follows him to the door, in a most fraternal, 
domestic, conciliatory style, begs that he would be reconciled 
to him, his old brother in arms ; says how much it grieves 
him to be misunderstood, deserted by true fellow-soldiers, 
dear to him from of old. The rigorous Hutchinson, 



336 ANECDOTES OF 

cased in his Presbyterian formula, sullenly goes his way." 
Among trials of this natiu'o, Fairfax's desertion must havo 
especially encroased his sense of isolation and tested his mag- 
nanimity. Thomas Lord Fairfax, enriched by llio forfeited 
spoils of the profligate Duke of Buckingham, had an only 
daughter, Mary, who though very unattractive in appearance, 
it was thought might bo utilized to bring about a reconcilia- 
tion with the royal exiles, and at the same time ensure the 
settlement of the newly acquired estates. The young lady's 
mother, who was a Vere, was probably the contriver of this 
precious scheme. AVhether or not liuckingham had pre- 
viously made overtures for the hand of Frances Cromwell, as 
commonly reported, must ever remain doubtful, but we may 
be quite sure that it was with no sort of reference to that 
transaction that Cromwell viewed the Fairfax intrigue with 
disgust and pity ; for in this he did but share the sentiment 
of all the honest party. The marriage nevertheless was per- 
formed with great splendour at Nun-Appleton in Yorkshire, 
(in Sep. 1657, which was only a few weeks before that of 
Frances Cromwell with Lord liich ;) and Fairfax then posted 
off to London to have a talk with the Protector about it. 
Thurloe can best tell us what passed. In a letter to Henry 
he says, — " I suppose your lordship hath had a full account 
of the DidvO ol' Duckiugham's marrying the lord Fairfax's 
daughter. My Lord Fairfax was hero tliis day, 27 Oct. with 
his Highness to desire favour in behalf of the Dulce and his 
new wife, the Duke being now sought for to be committed to 
the Island of Jersey. liis Highness dealt friendly with him, 
but yet plainly ; and advised him to do that now wliich he 
should have done before, that is, to consult with his old 
friends who had gone along with him in all the wars, as to 
what was fit for him to do ; and no longer listen to those who 
had brought him into this evil, but to regard them as enemies 
both to his honour and his interest. My Lord Fairfax 
laboured to justify himself as well as he couljl. He was 
willing to believe that the Duke was a better man than the 
world took him to be ; — and so his Highness and he parted."' 
[abridged] And the jtarting appears to have been final, and 
the alienation complete. Those who watched the ex-General 
stalking from the presence-chaml)er, took notice that he 
cocked his hat and cast his cloak under his arm, in a style 
which he was wont to ado])t Avhen liis wrath was roused. He 
lived to see verified the w(U'ds ol' his brother in arms, that 
both honour and interest had been bartered I'or this specious 
ullianee. A few years later, his promising son in law, in 
furtherance of an intrigue with the Countess of Shrewsbury, 



OLIVER CROMWELL. o-U 

slew that lady's husband in a duel ; and father Fairfax out- 
lived the event. As for his own dear daughter, nought but 
neglect and oblocjuj fell to her share as a matter of course. 

" It is high time," observes a recent critic, "that the great 
and good Lord Fairfax, as Mr. Markham calls him, should be 
made to appear in his true contemptible light "; and he 
refers, among other authorities, to Fairfax's own "Ajwlogia'', 
which, it is averred, clears his memory from not a single 
blot. Notes and Queries, 24 Feb. 1877. Possibly true 
enough. But what, it may be asked, is the use of parading 
one defaulter when the entire population was in full march 
back to Egypt? Though otherwise the spectacle is not 
unsuggestive which presents to view one historic name after 
another dropping away from the once beloved " Cause " and 
hiding itself in ignominy, as if to leave the Cyclopean figure 
of the Puritan King unapproachable in its solitude. 

A singular medal, known as the (^romwell and Fairfax 
medal, is preserved at Brussels, and was first published in 
England by Mr. Ilenfrey. The obverse bears a head of 
Cromwell wearing a sort of imperial crown. The head is 
double, and when reversed, re})resents that of a demon. In 
front of the faces is the word Cromwel. The surrounding 
Dutch legend (Den eeu mens is den anderen siin duivel) 
means " This one (Cromwell) is the evil genius of the other" 
(Fairfax). The reverse has a head, representing Fairfax in a 
Puritan hat, reversible in like manner and then dlsj)laying a 
fool's head with cap and bells ; and opposite the faces the 
word Farfox. The circumscription in this case (I)een sot is 
den anderen siin gek) signifies, " This simpleton (Fairfax) is 
the other's (Cromwell's) fool or dupe." Numismata Crom- 
toeUlaiia. 

Praise-God Barhone. 

Large indeed is the amount of capital which satirists have 
made out of this quiet citizen's name, occurring as it does in 
Cromwell's first Parliament. To make the matter worse 
they tampered with his surname ; and Barbone (which in its 
legitimate form points to some Lombardy ancestor, some im- 
porter of felts) became Barebones. Well, let it be granted 
that phi-ases taken from the Bible constituted the Christian 
names of the Ironsides, for historians and novelists from 
Hume down to Scott and Macaulay appear to cherisli the 
fancy : but let it be remembered at the same time, that if 
Corporal Hew A (jag in jv'eees fought in the Civil AVar, he 
must have been so christened by the clergy of James I.'s time ; 

Y 



338 ANECDOTES OF 

tliougli no one ever heard of him till he came to *' push of 
pike" in 1642. But how stands the fact? Joseph Besse, in 
his history of the first forty years of Quakerism, chronicles 
about 17,280 sufferers. You may look up and down the 
weary columns of his index, and, with some very few excep- 
tions, see among the men none hut honest George, Henry, 
Thomas, and Co. — and among the women, simple Susan, 
Mary, or Elizaheth ; — just such a list as modern times would 
fm^nish, with this exception, that in those days people were 
content with a single name, instead of the two, three, or more, 
which it is now the fashion to inflict on the children. The 
half-dozen which strilvc the eye as peculiar in Besse's List are 
Temperance Hignell, Provided Southwick, Mercy Chase, 8hu- 
namite Pack, and Faith Sturges ; — and these are literally all 
that a pretty close scrutiny can detect in that long long list 
of martyrs for conscience sake. We do indeed find among 
them scattered instances of such classic or aristocratic names 
as Barbara, Cassandra, Honora, Lucretia, Lionel, Marma- 
duke, Maximilian, Peregrine, Polyxena, Eeginald, Sebastian, 
and Ursula; but as for the ridiculous inventions fathered 
upon the age by the aforesaid satirists, the}'- are simply 
moonshine. Had the thing really prevailed, it would not 
have escaped the notice of that keen observer Dr. John 
Earle (afterwards Bishop of Salisbury) the author of Micro- 
cosmography. In drawing his character of " A she precise 
hypocrite", he says, " She rails at other women by the names 
of Jezebel and Dalilah, and calls her own daughters Pebecca 
and Abigail ; and not Anne, but Hannah". And this is the 
hardest thing that the microcosmocal doctor could find to say 
about the baptismal names of the nonconformists of 1640. 
Even when Sir John Danvers of Culworth named his three 
daughters Temperance Justice and Prudence, he was but 
adopting a practice in use to the present day ; for do we not 
still rejoice in attributing all the virtues to the ladies ? and 
does not the sisterhood still sui'vive among us of Charity, 
Constance, Faith, Grrace, Honom*, Patience, Philadelphia, 
and the like ? 

But some odd names undoubtedly existed ? — Granted. — 
And another thing also must be granted, — that if the whole 
tribe of them were ferreted out, they would occupy a mar- 
vellously small space. Here follow a few authentic cases — 
Hate evil Nutter, a New England elder, and a great perse- 
cutor of the Quakers in that colony. — Gracious Franklyn, the 
master of Heytesbury Hospital. — Consolatio]i Fox, a captain 
in Fairfax's last army. — Pious Stone and Manna Peeve, two 
of Cromwell's early troopers, mentioned in the Squire papers. 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 339 

— Sir Faithful Fortescue, a Parliamentary officer who proved 
very unfaithful at Edgehill. — Accepted Frewen, Archbishop 
of York, and his brother Tf/coiJifnl Frewen. — Increase M^ather, 
a New England divine. — llirth Waferer, clerk. Lords' 
Journals, iv. 250. Lire well Chapman, a bookseller rebuked 
in the Mercurius Aulicus, 9 Aug. 1660, for vending a book of 
fanatical anecdotes ; And this name even then was looked 
uj)on as so unusual as to prompt the editorial remark, " pos- 
sibly acquainted with Praise God Barebone." In the old 
Baptist chapel-yard of Southsea, is a monumental stone to 
the memory of Repentance wife of Thomas Smith. If the 
curiosity-monger thinks these are not sufficiently racy, he 
may reap a larger crop from Bunyan's allegories, or from 
Lacy's Old Troop and other comedies of Charles II's time. 
In real life he will hardly find them. 



Oliver's tomb in Westminster Abbey. 

Here follows the mason's receipt of wages for exhuming 
the bodies of Cromwell, Ireton, and Bradshaw, at the Eesto- 
ration of Charles II, as copied by Dr. Cromwell Mortimer, 
secretary of the Roj'al Society. 

"May the 4th day. 1661. EeCi then in full of the 
worshipfid Sergeant Norfolk, fiveteen shillings for taking up 
the corpes of Cromell and lerton and Brasaw. Rec. by mee, 
John Lewis." 

For a full account of the expulsion from the Abbey of 
these and sundry other of the buried heroes of the Common- 
wealth, the reader is referred to the classic pages of Dean 
Stanley's Historical Memorials of Westminster Abbey. The 
following appear to have escaped the execution of the 
warrant ; — Elizabeth Claypoole, the Earl of Essex, Grace 
wife of General Scott a ' regicide. General Worsley, and 
George Wilde lord chief baron of the Exchequer. 

Over the breast of the Protector was found a copper plate 
double gilt, engraved on the one side with the arms of the 
Commonwealtli impaling those of the deceased ; and upon 
the reverse, this legend, " Olicerius Protector Reipublicce Angliw, 
Scotice, et IIibernia\ Natus 25° Aprilis Anno 1599. Inau- 
(juratus 16° Decembris 1653. Mortuus 3° Septembris Anno 
1658, hie sit>us est." This j)late, together with the canister in 
which it was enclosed, was appropriated by Mr. Sergeant 
Norfolk of the Heralds College above mentioned, who at first 
imagined it to be gold. From him it descended, through his 
daughter Mrs. Hope Gifford of Colchester, into the hands of 



340 ANECDOTES OF 

the hon. George Hobart of Nocton in Lincolnshire ; and from 
that family it has again passed into the possession of the 
present Earl of Ripon and Do Grey. 

For " the savage ceremonial", as Dean Stanley terms it, 
"which followed the Restoration", the Dean has himself 
made what atonement he could hy placing a large prostrate 
tablet in the centre of the apse of Westminster Abbey, 
engraved as follows — 



In this Vault was interred 

Oliver Cromwell. 1658 

And in or near it 

Henry Ireton. his son in law. 1651 

ElIZABEThCrOMWELL His Mother. 1654 

Jane Desborough, his sister. 1656 
Anne Fleetwood. 

Also Officers of his Army and Councii,. 

Richard Deane. 1653 

Humphrey Mackworth. 1654 

Sir William Constable. 1655 

Robert Blake, admiral. 1657 

Dennis Bond. 1658 

John Bradshaw. president of 

The High Court of Justice. ^^59 

And Mary Bradshaw. his wife. 
These were removed in i66i. 



OLIVER CROMWELL, 341 

" Ubi nunc sapient ifi ossf( Jlerlini .^'^ 

The bones of Oliver sliare the honoui' which has apparently 
been common to heroes of the first class, from Moses down- 
wards, — that of becoming the subject of fierce debate and 
endless conjecture. Dryden said of him, " His ashes in a 
peaceful urn shall rest", and perhaps Dryden for once was 
right. At any rate no attempt will be made in this place to 
marshall the rival claims, either of the aforesaid urn, or of 
the River Thames, or the field of Naseby, or the vault of the 
Claypooles at Northampton, or the crypt beneath Ohiswick 
Church close to the residence of the Fauconbergs, or the 
Fauconbergs' home in Yorkshire, or lastly, of the storm-fiend 
who howled through the two nights or more preceding his 
death. But inasmuch as it is pleasant to meet with any 
corroboration of the filial devotion of Lady Mary Fauconberg, 
of which indeed there was never any reasonable doubt, but 
which the royalists have sometimes sought to tarnish, an excep- 
tion will be briefly made in favour of the Newburgh tradition ; 
as the one also which, more recently than others, has mvited 
public attention. The following passage from an account of 
Sir Greorge-Orby Womb well's home-life at Newburgh is 
quoted from the World of 11 Sep. 1878. 

"There is, however, a mightier memory than that of 
Laurence Sterne associated with Newburgh. In the long 
gallery is a glass case containing the saddle, holsters, bit, and 
bridle of the greatest prince who ever ruled in England, 
The saddle and holster cases are by no means of puritan 
simplicity, being of crimson velvet heavily embroidered in 
gold. The pistols are of portentous length and very thin in 
the barrel ; and the bit is a cruel one, with the tremendous 
cheek-pieces common two centuries ago. Doubtless the Lord 
Protector liked [to keep] his horse like his Roundheads well 
in hand. Not quite opposite to these relics hangs the portrait 
of a lady clad in dark green and demureness. This serious- 
looking dame is Mary Cromwell, wife of the second Lord 
Fauconberg. It was she who with keen womanly instinct, 
sharpened yet more by filial affection, foresaw that, the 
Restoration once achieved, the men who had fled before 
Oliver at Naseby and Worcester would not allow his bones 
to rest in Westminster. At dead of night his corpse was 
removed from the vault in the Abbey, and that of some 
member of the undistinguished crowd substituted for it. In 
solemn secrecy the remains of him of whom it was said ' if 
not a king, he was a man whom it Avas good for kings to 
have among tkem ' were conveyed to Newburgh where thej 



342 ANECDOTES OF 

yet repose ; tlie insane fury of the royalist ghouls who hung 
the supposed body of Cromwell as well as tliat of Ireton on the 
gallows at Tyburn having thus been cheated of its noblest 
prey. The tomb of Cromwell occupies the end of a narrow 
chamber at the head of a flight of steep stairs, and is an 
enormous mass of stonework built and cemented into the 
walls, apparently with the object of making it impenetrable. 
There is no reason to doubt the truth of this story, preserved 
in the ISellasyse family for two centui'ies and a quarter. It 
is not a legend, but a genuine piece of family history, and 
implicitly believed on the spot. It is needless to say that the 
over-cmious have again and again begged the lords of New- 
bm-gh to have the tomb opened, but this request has met 
with invariable refusal, even when proffered by the most 
illustrious personages. No, no, observes Sir Greorge Womb- 
well, heartily as ever, but quite firmly, — we do not make a 
shew of our great relative's tomb, and it shall not be opened. 
In this part of Yorkshire we no more dig up our remote 
great-uncles than we sell our grandmothers. The Protector's 
bones shall rest in peace, at least for my time." Notes and 
Queries, 5 October, 1878. [Sir George Wombwell the second 
baronet married in 1791 Lady Anne Bellasyse daughter of 
Henry second Earl of Fauconberg.] 

The Newburgh tradition might very safely take a slightly 
altered and more credible form, by making the acquisition of 
the Protector's body an event subsequent to the Tyburn 
exposure. Whether or not the three bodies were, after de- 
capitation, bui'ied beneath the gallows, as commonly alleged, 
two of them at least were recovered by fiiends, and caiTied 
off ; as proved by Mr. Godfrey Meynell's discovery of the 
coffins of Ireton and Bradshaw in the vault beneath 
Mugginton Church in Derbyshire. And in respect of the 
recovery of the third body, Lord and Lady Fauconberg were 
just the persons who of all others might be most reasonably 
credited with it. Compared with them, there were not at that 
moment any of the Protector's representatives possessing a 
tithe of the power and influence necessary for the accomplish- 
ment of so hazardous a scheme. The first place of conceal- 
ment might then have been the Chiswick crypt. Beyond this 
point we tremble to advance. 

The genuineness of the embalmed head belonging to Mr. 
Horace WiUiinson of Sevenoaks, is of course dependant on 
the previous question, Was it the Protector who was himg 
at Tybm'n ? That the head in question is the same which 
(together with a portion of the pike-staff) fell from the pin- 
acle of Westminster Hall in James II's reign is sufficiently 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 343 

credible, and every portion of its internal evidence is so far 
favourable as to make it impossible to gaze on the relic with- 
out deep emotion. The history of its transmission and of its 
present condition has been exhaustively treated by the late 
C. Donovan Esq. in two numbers of the Phrenological Journal 
for 1844, There is also, — "An account of the embalmed 
head of Oliver Cromwell at Shortlands Ho. in Kent, by 
Colonel Sir James Edward Alexander," in the Transactions 
of the Glasgow Archceological Society, Yol. II. p. 35. The 
following scanty notice must suffice — 

The upper half of the skull has been sawn off. This was 
for the purpose of embalming. The lower half being then 
filled with the spicy composition, long since concreted, it has 
come to pass that this portion of the head, including the lower 
jaw, and the pike passing through it all, is cemented into one 
mass, — a state of things which it has been asserted oould not 
be predicated of any other known head ; since the long 
exposm-e of thirty years would in ordinary cases have detached 
the lower jaw and destroyed the fleshy covering. And 
whereas the crown of the skull would be pushed off by the 
upward action of the pike, this difficulty was met by piercing 
the crown with a central hole, through which the pike then 
passed, and appeared above the skull. Phrenologically 
speaking, the head has no large or small organs, all being 
nearly alike well developed ; consequently it is absolutely 
a large head ; the circumference over the occipital bone 
and round the superciliary region being 22 inches ; in 
life it would have been 23. The spot where the well-known 
wart over the right eye was placed, is indicated by a small 
cavity in the bone, the excrescence having dropped away. 
The ragged remains of hair, which is of a reddish chesnut, 
and which covers the jaw, corresponds with the account of his 
remaining unshaved diu-ing the anxious weeks passed at Lady 
Claypoole's bedside, and with the remark made by his relations 
when they saw the post-mortem plaster-cast, that his habitual 
practice had latterly been to preserve a clean chin. The elder 
Mr. Wilkinson, writing in 1827, says, — "This head has been m 
my possession nearly fifteen years. I have shewn it to 
hundreds of people, and only one gentleman ever brought 
forward an objection to any part of the evidence. He was 
an M.p. and a descendant by a collateral branch from 0. C. 
He told me, in contradiction to my remark that chesnut 
hair never turned grey, that he had a lock of hair at his 
country house which was cut from the Protector's head on 
his death-bed, and had been carefully passed down through 
his family to his own possession, which lock of hair was 



344 ANECDOTES OF 

perfectly grey. He has since expressed his opinion that the 
long exposiu'o was suflicient to change the colour." [In the 
JDiib/iii Ihtireysify Magazine, April 1843, it is stated that a 
lock cut from Charles I's head, when washed, was of a bright 
brown colour, though it is kno"«ai to have been of a grizzled 
black in life. The embalming materials probably wrought 
the same effect in both.] The ground on Avhicli the scidptor 
Flaxman pronounced in its favour was the squareness of the 
lower jaw, a marked speciality in the Cromwell family. 
Oliver Cromwell Esq. of Cheshunt, after comparing it with 
the mask taken after death, expressed himself satisfied; while 
Dr. Southgate Librarian of the British Museum, and Mr. 
Kirk the Medallist, reached the same conviction from their 
knowledge of the Oliverian coins and medals. 



Oliver on the stage. 

Shakspeare, a modern sentimentalist has declared, would 
have found but sorry material for his characters in the 
Puritan age. Let Shakspeare alone for the choice of his 
materials. One thing is certain : — he Avould not have fallen 
into the weakness common to all the English dramatists and 
novelists who have hitherto taken Oliver in hand, — that of 
making a fool of him. Wo should at least have had homo- 
geneity, and not a being made up of discordant and iri'e- 
concileable elements. On the Continent he has been drama- 
tized (with what success we cannot say) by Victor Hugo and 
Victor Sejour, and no doubt by various Germans. The 
earliest attempt in our own country must have been Crom- 
icelVs Conspiracij,{x tragi-comedy by a person of quality, 1G60. 
Since then he has been experimented upon by a large tribe of 
Lilliputians beginning with Grreen and ending no one knows 
where. Macready appeared as the son of the Protector in a 
play by Searle called Master Charles, in five acts. To the 
dramatic works of Sir Edward Lytton Bulwer is appended an 
Ode entitled Oliver'' s Dream, based on the popular tradition of 
a gigantic female figm-e drawing his bed-curtains aside when 
he was young, and predicting his final greatness. Then we 
have The llehelliov, a tragedy by T. Pawlings, — Crouncell, an 
historical play in five acts, by James Matthews Leigh, 1838, 
— Oliver Cromtvell, an historical tragedy, by Alfred Bate 
Richards, dedicated to Thomas Carlyle, 1872. He figures 
largely in Scott's Woodstock, and other novels, generally as a 
coarse blustering hj'pocrite. Let us now view him in the 
character of a Caliban or something worse. 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 345 

In Devonshire the common j)eople seem to have heen so 
well and fruitfully instructed in English history by their 
spiritual masters and pastors, that the Protestant Emperor 
came at last to be remembered only as the incarnation of 
everything that was revolting and hideous. Throughout the 
country generally it is no great wonder that the 29th of May, 
being the anniversary of Charles IPs restoration, or oak- 
apple day as it was called, should have long been kept as a 
holiday ; but the extraordinary form of revelry to which 
allusion is now made, survived in the town of Tiverton till 
far into the present age. An eye-witness of the scene, 
writing in the Leisure Hour for 1853, gives us a graphic 
description of what he there saw so recently as 181 0, and the 
following (in an abbreviated form) is no doubt a truthful nar- 
rative. 

In our boyhood, when the Peninsular war was raging, 
we chanced to reside in the neat and picturesque market- 
town of Tiverton on the banks of the Exe. In the year 
1810 and of course for many generations previously, the 
29th of May was as complete a holiday in this town 
as it could ever have been in any part of England 
since the first year of the Restoration. At early dawn 
the whole town was awakened by the furious clanging of 
church-bells ; and instead of rising to pursue their usual occu- 
pations, they had to turn out and sally forth into the neigh- 
bouring fields and woods to procure branches of oak where- 
with to decorate the fronts of their houses. Woe to the 
luckless or drowsy tradesman who by the usual hour of com- 
mencing business had not metamorphosed his shop-front into 
a green bower. Amid this leafy garniture King Charles was 
personated by stuffed dolls wearing tinsel crowns and sitting 
astride on the branches of the oak. Some of the townsfolk 
went so far as to cover a portion of their oak-leaves with gold 
leaf ; while gilt or silvered oak-apples glittered on the hat or 
in the button-hole of all who could afford them. In those 
times there was neither city nor rural police, the only peri- 
patetic delegate of authority being the parish constable, and 
he, for reasons best known to himself, never ventured to put 
in an appearance on oak-apple day. The whole town, in 
short, was at the mercy of the mob ; it was a day on which 
ruffianism was at a premium ; the greatest ruffian being 
invariably selected from among a hundred or more candidates 
to enact the part of Oliver Cromwell. This historical person 
made his annual resurrection about eleven o'clock, by which 
time it was supposed that all necessary business had been 
transacted, and after this hour no female dared venture forth. 



346 



ANECDOTES OK 



The apparition of Oliver was the signal for flight whereever 
he came. Imagine a brawny six-foot man, naked to the 
waist, his face begrimed all over with a mixture of lamp- 
black and oil, and surmounted with a huge wig dripping with 
grease. To his waist was attached a capacious bag contain- 
ing several pounds of the mixture with which his own skin 
was anointed. This was Oliver Cromwell ; and his mission 
was to catch hold of any and everybody that he could over- 
take, and b}^ forcing their heads into his bag, declare them 
" free of his commonwealth," — a privilege which was remitted 
only on condition of their coming down with a money ran- 
som, the amount depending on the good will and pleasure 
of the savage who held them in his grasp. As a fleet and 
powerful fellow was invariably chosen to play Oliver, and as 
he was sm^e to become irritable after enduring for some time 
the assaults of the mob who pelted him and swilled him with 
water, it was necessary to take measm-es to prevent him from 
becoming, in the excitement of the chase, too indiscriminate 
in the bestowal of his favom-s. This was accomplished by 
tying round his waist a stout rope about fifty yards long, the 
end of which was in charge of his " Cabinet Council " con- 
sisting of half a dozen congenial spirits, who would moderate 
his pace or pull him up suddenly when in pm'suit of unlawful 
game, such for instance as the parish doctor, or a magistrate 
whom curiosity miglit unwittingly have drawn within the 
realm of danger. That they were not very fastidious in these 
exceptional cases may be gathered from the fact that the 
writer once saw the clerical incmnbent of the parish made 
captive. This was the Rev. Caleb Colton (the author of 
Lacon) who was of course well known to every individual in 
the town. The reverend gentleman suftered hideously from 
the grasj) of the " Protector," and only escaped a dive into 
the grease-bag by the prompt payment of a guinea. Thus 
Oliver held undisputed possession of Tiverton until five 
o'clock in the afternoon, when his reign was at an end, and 
he was led off to retu-ement, and to count and enjoy the fruits 
of his labours. 

This Tiverton frolic is in its details sufficiently suggestive of 
its origin. The object had in view by those who established 
the first greasy Oliver and set him running was to make prey 
of the real or supposed adherents of the deceased Protector. 
By identifying these with nonconformists of every shade of 
opinion, a double object was gained, and thus the whole 
affair was felt to be essentially a church-pastime, in full and 
fitting accordance with the policy which drove out of the 
Anglican establishment two thousand of its best ministers, 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 347 

and which subjected the entire country for two decades to 
"the reign of the harlots." The memoirs of the late William 
Brock, Baptist minister, who came from that part of Eng- 
land, supply a narrative of personal annoyances to which his 
youth was subjected, sufficiently indicating that the old pre- 
judice had lost little of its vii'ulence far into the present 
century. 

Cronmellian personal relics. 

Of these, as may well be supposed, there is a large crop. 
In briefly cataloguing them, it will be best to begin with the 
heir-looms of the Cromwell family preserved in the custody 
either of Mrs. Bush of Duloe rectory (see page 45) or Mrs. 
Huddlestone of Bishops-Teignton, or in the Prescott family of 
16 Oxford Square, W. The portraits at Duloe are as 
follows. 

1. John Thurloe, secretary to the Lord Protector, painted 
by Dobson. 

2. G-eneral Stewart, uncle to the Protector. 

3. Elizabeth, daughter of the Protector Eichard. 

4. Eichard, fifth son of Major Henry Cromwell (see page 35 ) 
0. Sarah Gratton, wife of the above. 

6. Eleanor Oatton, Mrs. Hynde, sister of the above. 

7. Oliver, son of Eichard Cromwell of Hampstead. (see 
page 38.) ^ ^ 

8. Morgan Morse Esq. of page 41. 

9. Mrs. Morgan Morse. 

10 Mary Tudor, daughter of Henry VIII. very fine, on 
panel, by Mabuse. 

11. William III, by Sir Godfrey Kneller. 

^ \^; ^emidorus Cromwell Eussell, of page 45 ;— father 
of Mrs. Bush. 

13. Mr. EusseU of Hereford, grandfather of the above. 

The portraits at Bishops-Teignton are as follows— 

1. Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector, by Walker. 

2. Elizabeth Bom-chier, wife of the above, by Sir Peter 
Lely. 

3. Henry Cromwell, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland: bv 
Chriestian Dusart. 

4. Mary Cromwell, wife of Earl Fauconberg, by Michael 
Dahl, the Danish painter. 

5. Frances Cromwell, Lady Eussell, by John Eiley. 

T T ^^Joi" Henry Cromwell, son of the Lord Lieutenant of 
Ireland, by W. Wissing. 



'548 ANECDOTES (»E 

7. Hannah Hewling, wife of the above, by Wissing. 

8. William Cromwell, of Kirby Street, fourth son of Major 
Henry Cromwell : by Jonathan ilichardson. 

9. Thomas Cromwell, seventh son of Major Henry Crom- 
well, by Riehardson. 

10. A family group, comprising Richard Cromwell, fifth 
son of the Major, — Sarah G-atton his wife with an infant son 
in her lap, — two daughters, Elizabeth in blue and Anna in 
red, — Mrs. Lotitia Thornhill in yellow, — Mrs. Eleanor Grrace- 
dieu in white, — the widow of Mr. Rob. Thornhill, — Mrs. 
Hinde making tea : painted by Richard Philips. 

11. Richard Cromwell, Protector : by Walker. 

12. Oliver Cromwell, of Cheshunt, Esq. the last who bore 
the name ; dying in 1821. 

13. Elizabeth, second daughter of the Protector Oliver, 
wife of John Claypoole. 

The following objects are in the custody of the Prescott 
family. 

Oliver Cromwell's mask, — Henry Cromwell's helmet, — 
Long-Parliament hat, wide brimmed, — Spm-s, — 0. C.'s 
powder-flask, — Another helmet, — Seal of Lord-Lieut, of 
Ireland, — 0. C.'s private seal, — Four pieces of padded armour, 
— Pedigree, — Pair of leather leggings, — 0. C.'s stuTups, — 
Eight swords, one serpentine, — Mourning sword belonging 
to the last Oliver Cromwell Esc{. — Dagger, — Henry Crom- 
well's bible and prayer-book, — Piece of the pear-tree planted 
by 0. C. in the garden of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, 
— Piece of Shakspeare's mulberry-tree, — Portrait of Thomas 
Cromwell Earl of Essex,— Ditto, Henry YIII,— 0. C.'s 
father and mother, — Charles I, in needlework, — John Pym, — 
Richard Cromwell, — Do. in locket, — Lord and Lady Thomond, 
— Nicholas Skinner, — Hatchment carried at the Protector's 
funeral, — Small gilt edged diary, — Banner, — Oliva pacis, — 
Small cannon ball, — Medicine-chest, — Large Tuscan cabinet 
in ebony, of elaborate design, for perfumes ; presented by 
the Grand Duke of Tuscany to his Highness, on the anival 
of his portrait in Florence, — Small pictm-e of Mary daughter 
of Nicholas Skinner, widow of Thomas Cromwell, who died 
in 1813, at the age of 104, see page 40. — Various Lives of 
the Protector and miscellaneous papers, in cabinet. 

His Highness's coach appears from an entry in the Com- 
mons' Journals 28 May 1660, to have been transferred to the 
service and use of Charles II ; or that such at least was the 
design, though from a passage in the first vol. of State Poems 
p. 266, it seems to liave eventually reached the hands of Lord 
lloUis. Mark Noble tells us (but this was a hundred years 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 349 

ago) that a large barn built by Oliver at St. Ives still [1785] 
goes by his name ; and the farmer renting the estate still 
marks his sheep with the identical marking-irons which Oliver 
used, having 0. C. upon them. State-coach and marking- 
irons — Lord Hollis ought certainly to have secured both. 

Eespecting the articles which descended through Mary 
Cromwell, Mark Noble has the following, — "The present 
Earl of Fauconberg (1785) possesses some valuables which 
were the first nobleman's of that title, and presented to him 
by his Highness, his lordship's father in law. Amongst 
these are a sabre worn by Oliver at Naseby. His head is 
engraved upon the blade, with this inscription, * Oliver 
Cromwell, General for the English Parliament, 1652 ' — above 
it, Soli Deo gloria, — below it, Fide, sed cui vide. On the other 
side of the blade is the same head and inscription, and a man 
on horseback, with the words 8pes mea est Deo, and Vincere 
aid morir A similar weapon is described in the Gentleman's 
Magazine for 1793 p. 209, belonging to some other party. 
This may suffice for the 0. C. sv/ords, which might fill an 
armoury. The horse-furniture at Newburgh has already 
been described at page 341. But the Fauconberg collection 
long included an object of still greater interest, which has now 
passed into the possession of the Earl of Chichester. This 
was Oliver's pocket-bible, an edition printed for the assignees 
of Robert Barker in 1645, bound in four thin volumes for 
portability, and having Cromwell's autograph at the begin- 
ning of vol. iii, thus, " 0. C. el. 1645 ", and the words " Qui 
cessat esse melior cessat esse bonus.'''' Each volume also con- 
tains '■'■Lord Fauconberg his booh, 1677." Lastly must be 
mentioned Lady Mary's knife fork and spoon in a chagrin 
case, which she derived from her father, and which she 
bequeathed to Miss Plaxton, from whom they passed to her 
descendant Mr. Tho. Beckwitli of York, painter and F.A.S. 

Mr. H. R. Field, formerly of the Mint, now, 1879, of 
Munster Lodge, Teddington, possesses the portrait of Elizabeth 
Bourchier the Protector's mother, by some Dutch master, — 
a marble bust of the Protector, — several original letters, — 
various articles belonging to his medicine chest, — one of the 
brass breast ornaments worn on the belt of his troopers, — 
GrilLray's caricatm\a representation of George III inspecting 
a miniatm'e of Cromwell, — collection of drawings of many of 
the relics formerly at Brantingsay, but now held by the 
Prescott family. 

At the thirty days' sale, in 1806, of Sir Ashton Lever's 
museum, lot 3901, consisting of Oliver's helmet and gorget, 
a back and front, a left arm pouldron, and a buff doublet, 



350 ANECDOTES OF 

was bought by Mr. Bullock for five guiueas. They were 
presented by a descendant of General Disbrowe to Mr. Busby, 
who gave them to Sir Ashton. Lot 3481, described as "a 
three-quarter bust in armom^ cut in wliite paper," and regarded 
as the work of his daughter Mrs. Bridget Fleetwood, is now 
in the United Service Institution, where also are divers other 
Cromwelliana — A clock, London-make, now in the Phila- 
delphia Library, and regarded as the oldest clock in America, 
is called Oliver Cromwell's clock. His watch, delineated in 
a print in the Gent. Mag. Dec. 1808, is now in the British 
Museum. His oval brass snuff-box was minutely described 
in Notes ami Queries, 29 Oct. 1864. At an Archaeological 
meeting in York, Sep. 1846, another watch turned up, a 
repeater, maker's name Jaques Cartier ; exhibited by Mr. 
F. H. Fawkes of Farnley Hall near Otley, together with the 
original matrix in silver of a seal for the approbation of 
parish ministers. Mark Noble believed himself to be the happy 
possessor of the Protector's steel tobacco-box. His boots, 
with many other articles, are shewn to visitors at the Chequers 
in Buckinghamshire ; while a rival pair of boots formed part 
of Mr. Mayer's Museum at Liverpool, together with a cocoa- 
nut cup mounted in silver ; and there is a silver shoe-buckle 
in the rooms of the Edinburgh Antiquaries. Mrs. Inigo 
Thomas of Ratten, the lady mentioned at page 150, had his 
brooch. Even his finger-ring was found in 1824 at Enderby 
near Leicester, having a pointedly cut diamond between rubies, 
and 0. C. on each side of the rubies. Inside the ring were 
the words For the Cause. Gent. Mag. July 1824. Thomas 
Dickenson Hall Esq. of Whatton Manor, Co. Notts, has his 
silver diinking cup, with a cover. The numerous articles 
inherited by the Dickenson family were likely to be genuine, 
as they came through the Claypooles, see page 275. An 
aunt of Daines Barrington formerly rejoiced in the possession 
of an intricate lock, manufactured in Scotland, but attached 
to a chamber-door in AVhitehall. Other possessors of rehcs 
are or were, Mr. Goodall of Dinton Hall, Ailesbury, — Sir 
Peter Dick of Sloane Street, Chelsea, — and the owner of the 
armoury in the chapel of Farley Castle the antient seat of the 
Hungerfords in Wiltshire. The above list, copious though 
it may a])pear, is far from being exhaustive, and a small space 
must still be claimed for objects more strictly belonging to the 
Protectress's department. It remains then to state that at a 
recent sale of porcelain belonging to Miss Wroughton of 
Wilcot near Devizes, one lot was stjded Oliver's, — probably 
a set of Delft earthenware, which was popular in England 
from 1600 to 1660. And when about the same time the 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 351 

antique furniture of Chavenage-house near Tetbury was sold 
by auction, amongst various Oliverian relics, his quilt in drap 
satin and needlework, trimmed with silk fringe, was sold for 
£3. A similar quilt of Ireton's fetched one guinea. Nor 
must an article belonging to Ireton's wife, Bridget Cromwell, 
be overlooked. This is a brass-mounted pair of bellows 
adorned with scroll-work and flowers encircling a portrait of 
her father, — exhibited by Mr. Burkitt at the Archfeological 
meeting in 1845. Lastly, some culinary vessel, a kettle it is 
believed, is cherished by Sir Charles Reed of Hackney, 
derived through his wife from her father Edward Baines 
Esq. of Leeds. 

Portraits of Cromn-ell. 

This is a province which one may well tremble to invade. 
Inclusive of effigies in marble, metal, ivory, porcelain, 
plaster, and wood, it embraces the heroic, the grotesque, the 
mythological, the infernal, but never the celestial. We may 
say, in brief, that the mania for possessing some portraiture 
of the man of the hour culminated in Oliver's reign, and the 
epidemic ran through Europe. There is a gentleman resident 
in the Paragon at Hackney, Mr. De Kewer Williams, the 
pastor of an Independent church, whose Cromwellian museum 
in one respect at least may be presumed to be emphatically 
unique, for it included, when last catalogued, 233 different 
engraved portraits of him, — 180 being English, 39 French, 
7 Dutch, G German, 1 Italian ; and by this time the collection 
is doubtless still further enriched. Other items in this gather- 
ing are portraits in oil (one apparently an original ;) minia- 
tures on various grounds and bas-relievos of every material, 
a statuette of considerable age, possibly contemporary, besides 
coins, medals, seals, silver lockets, a large ivory tankard, the 
carving around wliich represents the dissolution of the Long 
Parliament ; all the best historical engravings in which 
Oliver takes part, inclusive of caricatures native and foreign ; 
and lastly a book-case of characteristic device, containing a 
selection of rare works illustrative of his career, in various 
languages. 

As any attempt to catalogue or to criticize the painted 
portraits of Oliver would be a Sisyphean task, a few random 
notations must suffice. It may be safely said that not one of 
them incarnates the moral majesty which captivated the eyes 
of Carrington, Andrew Marvell, and other ajipreciative ob- 
servers. The reason is obvious ; not one of the artists was 
equal to his subject. Symon in his two earliest medals makes 



8j2 anecdotes of 

a near approach, and Cooper among miniature painters has 
surpassed all his fellows, and fortunately the plaster-cast 
taken imniedialely after death siu'vives. The heads 1 and 6 
in Plate I. of Ilenfrey's Numisnuda CromweJliana convey, 
beyond all doubt, a truer representation of Cromwell in 
middle life than can be found elsewhere. 

" How much of morality," observes Carlyle, " is in the 
kind of insight we get of anything ; the eye seeing in all 
things what it brought with it the faculty of seeing ! To the 
mean eye all things are trivial, as certainly as to the jaundiced 
they are yellow. Raphael, the painters tell us, is the best of 
all portrait-painters." Hero-irorship. And was it not a 
dictum in which Northcote and Ilazlit concurred, that a 
painter can impart to the features of his sitter no more intellect 
than he possesses himself ? By the like reasoning it may be 
inferred that, had the manual dexterity of a Carrington, a 
Marvell, or a Carlyle, been the faithful exponent of their 
moral sympathies, a standard would have been minted, which 
the very best of Mr. De Kewer Williams' three hundred 
specimens can but faintly shadow forth. 

In the execution of his picture of the Dissolution of the 
Long Parliament, Benjamin West was anxious to examine 
a miniature of great repute, then belonging to an antient 
lady, a member of the Pussell family. " Lord Russell " is 
described as the mediating channel through whom permission 
to inspect was, after much difhculty, obtained. But permission 
was only one step in advance. Sundiy preliminaries had to 
be observed, for which the painter was hardly prepared. The 
box containing the miniature lay at the lady's banking-house; 
and whenever it was brought to her own home, the servants 
were all put into livery as for a State-reception, and visitors 
were required to appear in Court-dress. Benjamin West's 
Quaker prejudices revolted against the sword and other 
paraphernalia belonging to that costume ; but deeming it 
best to waive his objections for the nonce, he was duly ushered 
along with others into the lady's bedroom, where she appeared 
propped up with pillows and dressed with plumes and jewels. 
The box was now opened, and Mr. West had at last the 
satisfaction of holding the Protector's miniature in his hand. 
A glance suthced to verify the report of its excellence. He 
had never before seen, he said, so expressive a likeness of 
" Cromwell." At the word Cromwell the old lady's eager 
hand had plucked the jewel from his profane grasp and re- 
placed it in its casket. With an agitated voice she declared 
that Mr. West could not again be permitted to handle it. 
" You must know," she added, " that in my presence he is 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 353 

never spoken of but as my Lord Protector." Lord Russell 
here interposed, and after suitable apologies and explanations 
obtained for Mr. West the privilege of another long inspec- 
tion, in the course of which the coui'tly painter found sundry 
opportunities for magnifying the name and virtues of our 
Lord Protector. After the lady's death, he made another 
effort to see it, through her executors ; but all the information 
he could get was that when the box was recovered from the 
bankers, the picture was absent and was supposed to have 
gone abroad. Thus it seemed hopelessly lost, but Mr. West 
was of opinion that the beaut}^ of its execution would ensure 
its restoration to the light. JS^ofc-'f and Queries, l^)th Jul;/ 
1865. Possibly its subsequent history may be read in a 
statement occurring in a letter to the present writer, written 
in 1848 by the late Sir Thomas Frankland Lewis, to the 
effect, that the best portrait of Oliver he had ever seen was 
" a miniature in the hands of Sir Augustus Foster, who had 
purchased it at Turin. It was by Cooper, and had belonged 
to some of Oliver's descendants." As to the lady herself, 
who paid such aif ectionate homage to his memory, she may be 
conjecturally identified with one of tlie two members of the 
Russell family who successively filled the office of bed-chamber 
woman to the Princess Amelia — page 107. 

The portrait (life size) in Sidney Sussex College, Cam- 
bridge, was probably the last taken from life, for it represents 
him worn and faded, from the fatigues of office and in-door 
life. It was presented to the College in 1766, b}^ Thomas 
Hollis the antiquary, who accompanied the gift with two un- 
signed letters, as follows. 



" To the Master and Fellons of Sidney Sussex College, 
Cambridge. 

An Englishman, an assertor of liberty, citizen of the world, 
is desirous of having the honour to present an original por- 
trait in crayons of the head of 0. Cromwell, Protector, drawn 
by Cooper, to Sidney Sussex College in Cambridge. London, 
Jan. 15, 1766. 

I freely declare it, I am for old Noll ; 

Though his government did a tyrant's resemble ; 

He made England great, and her enemies tremble. 

It is requested that the portrait should be placed so as to 
receive the light from left to right, and be free from sun- 



35*1 ANECDOTES OK 

shine. Also that the favour of a line may be written on the 
arrival of it, directed to Pierce Delver, at Mr. Shore's, book- 
binder in Maiden Lane, Covent-garden, London." 

Second Letter. — " A small case was sent yesterday by the 
Cambridge waggon from the Green Dragon, Bishopsgate 
Street, directed to Dr. EUiston, Master of Sidney Sussex 
College Cambridge, free of carriage. It contains a portrait 
Avhich the Master and Fellows of that College are requested 
to accept. London, Jan. 18, 1766." 

How and when the donor's real name was discovered is un- 
certain ; but the letters were so characteristic that it could 
not long remain a secret. Thomas Hollis died in 1774, but 
we learn from his Memoirs that it was known in 1780. Notes 
and Queries, 24 Feb. 1872. 

Sctdpture — " And then the honour ? Alas, yes ; — but as 
Cato said of the statue : So many statues in that Forum of 
yours ; may it not be better if they ask, "Where is Cato's 
statue? than say. There it is." Hero-u-orshij). 

In the year 1845 the question. Shall Cromwell have a 
statue ? was much debated in f/ie Times and other daily 
papers, — quite a formidable crop of letters arriving from all 
parts of the kingdom, written by opponents as well as by 
favourers of the pro2')osition, but all evidencing the deep in- 
terest which lies smouldering in the heart of Englishmen, 
ever prompt to kindle into a flash at the mention of his name. 

A marble bust was executed some few years back by 
Matthew Noble — commissioned by Thomas Bazley Potter of 
Manchester, who was anxious to present it to the Reform 
Club. 

For some weeks in [1872 ?] the plaster-cast of a colossal 
statue of Oliver stood opposite the Houses of Parliament. The 
head was good, but the dress was faulty in every pai'ticular ; 
arising from the desire, so common among sculptors, to sub- 
ordinate the generic outlines of costume to muscular expression, 
— a fatal error when imported into that picturesque age oi 
stiff buff -jerkins, slashed doublets, and capacious boots. The 
statues of French heroes of the same period at Paris and 
Versailles are systematically free from this affectation. 



National Flags. 

Mi\ Henfrey observes, writing in 1875, that there seems 
to be only one example of a Commonwealth flag now in 
existence in this country. It was the standai'd hoisted during 
that period on the flagstaff at Chatham dock-yard, and it is 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 355 

still preserved at the private liouse of tlie Ca])tain-Superiii- 
tendent of the dock-yard, Captain Charles Fellowes, C.B. 
It is there deposited in a curious chest of carved cypress, 
taken by Sir Greorg-e E,ooke out of a Spanish galleon in Vigo 
Bay in 1704, and which was used for holding- colours. The 
following notice of it occiu-s in the Kentish Gazette, 11 January, 
1822. 

" Croimceirs Standard. — When his Eoyal Highness the 
Duke of Grloucester visited the dock-yard at Chatham a few 
days since, he w^as shown Cromwell's Standard, supposed to 
he the only one remaining in the kingdom. Its antient 
simpliedty and good preservation excited the attention of his 
Royal Highness. When his late Majesty visited the yard in 
1781, it was shewn to him, and he expressed a desire that 
particular care might he taken of it. The flag is red, twenty 
one feet by fifteen ; having on it St. Greorge's Cross, red on a 
white field ; and the Irish harp, yellow on a blue field, the 
shield surroimded by branches of palm and laurel." 

Respecting which memorandum, Mr. Henfrey further 
observes that the writer errs in calling it Cromw^ell's Standard, 
since it carries the ai'ms of the Commonwealth of England 
and Ireland only, which differ considerably from the bearings 
of the Protectorate. On the 18 May 1G58 an order of Oliver's 
Council directed, — " That the Standard for the Greneral of 
his Highness's fleet be altered, and do bear the arms of 
England Scotland and Ireland, with his Highness's escutcheon 
of pretence according to the impression of the great seal of 
England, — and that the jack-flags for the flag-officers of the 
fleet and for the general ships of war of his Highness be the 
arms of England and Scotland united, according to the antient 
form, with the addition of the harp, according to the model 
now shewn ; — and that the Commissioners of the Admiralty 
and Navy do take order that the Standard and jack-flags be 
prepared accordingly." The Standard thus determined 
on, bore quarterly, first and fourth, argent, — the cross of St. 
George, gntca, for England ; second, azure, a saltire, argent, 
being St. Andrew's cross for Scotland ; — thuxl, azure, a harjD, 
or, stringed, argent, for Ireland. On an escutcheon of 
pretence] in the centre w^ere the paternal arms of Cromwell, 
sahle, a lion rampant, argent. 

The National Ensign was in all probability down to 1658 
the flag of St. George introduced by the Commonwealth in 
1649 ; but by the order above quoted w^e learn that the old 
union jack bearing the combined crosses of St. George and 
St. Andrew was revived, with the singular alteration of 
placing the Irish harp *' over the centre " (as Mr. Henfrey 



366 ANECDOTES OF 

supposes) of the flag. This altered union- jack was of course 
disused upon the restoration of Charles II, nor was Ireland 
again represented in the union flag until the reign of 
George III, when the cross of St. Patrick was added to the 
jack on the union with Ireland, 1 January, 1801. During 
the short period between the resignation of the Protector 
Pichard and the return of the ICing, the Standard was 
probably that of tlie Protectorate with the Cromwell 
escutcheon omitted. The ensign was perhaps the union jack 
as altered in 1658. From a pcqjor hi/ II. W. Ilcnfrcij on the 
Commouicenlth flags. In the matter of colours, costumes, and 
badges, worn by the several companies of the fighting armies, 
in the early stages of the war, much information is supplied 
in the life of Admiral Deane by his descendant John Bathurst 
Deane. 

Numismata CromiceUiana, or the medallic history of Oliver 
Cromwell, illustrated by his coins, medals, and seals. Dedi- 
cated by permission to the Marquis of Ripon, "the eminent 
statesman, the patron of archaeology and art, and a descendant 
of the Cromwell family." By William Henry Henfrey, author 
of A Guide to English Coins, Member of the Numismatic 
and other learned Societies. 4to. 1877. This fascinating 
volume is an exhaustive treatise on a department of our 
history, concerning which, notwithstanding the extant account 
of Simon's works, little before was known. With a copious 
history of minting operations during the period in question, 
it supplies also the biographies of the artists engaged, and 
is rich not only in scientific data but in contemporary anecdote. 
The pictorial delineations, which are of extraordinary beauty, 
being the product of the Autotype company, include all the 
English specimens, and also foreign imitations and Dutch 
satirical pieces. In presence of so finished a work of art, it 
would be an impertinence to treat its details in a touch-and-go 
style. Beyond therefore a notice of the Dunbar medal, but 
little further attempt will be made to rifle its contents. 

Oliver's numismatic history commences with the victory 
of Dunbar, 3 Sept. 1650. Two days after the news of that 
event reached the Plouse, a resolution was passed for a general 
distribution of memorial pieces to the army ; and constitutes 
the first instance in English history of the same medal being 
granted to ofiicers and men alike, as is our present practice. 
Nor was it ever done again till the battle of Waterloo in 
1815, when a distribution of silver medals was in like manner 
made to every man present at the action. Relics of this kind 
in commemoration of great men and great events have of 
course been common time out of mind, but in the whole 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 357 

space of our own history preceding the battle of Waterloo, 
the Commonwealth of the Dunbar era stands alone in the 
gift of this form of decoration to every man of every grade in 
the army. 

It was proposed that the Dunbar medal should exhibit on 
the one side a view of the Parliament sitting, and on the 
other an effigy of the victorious general, backed by a 
distant view of the army, and superscribed " The Lord of 
Hosts," which had been the battle-cry on the occasion ; and 
Thomas Simon the renowned medallist was sent down to 
Scotland, to convey to him the wishes of the House, and to 
make the necessary studies for the bust. Oliver expressed 
his cordial approval of the design, except that he wished his 
own portrait to be left out ; but as this would not be listened 
to, Simon went back to London furnished with those materials 
which have issued in that representation of the Greneral in 
middle life which we instinctively feel to bo the true one ; 
well executed in the Dunbar medals, but still better expressed 
in the Inauguration medal. Both are represented in Plate 
I. of the autotypes in Mr. Henfrey's work. 

In executing the reverse for the smaller of the Dunbar 
medals, namely the view of the ParHament sitting, Simon 
used up a die which he had formerly engraved for the Meruisti 
medal. This was a medal which had been ordered in 1649 
to decorate several sea captains who had done good service to 
the Commonwealth ; and it had on the obverse the Common- 
wealth arms in the form of the English and Irish shields 
suspended from an anchor, and the word Meruisti. These, 
with their gold chains, were ready for delivery in 1653, and 
Cromwell having in the meanwhile become Protector, he had 
the pleasure of personally presenting them to Generals Blake 
and Monke, to Yice-Admii-al Penn, Bear- Admiral Lawson, 
and others. 

Of the Cromwellian coinage generally, Mr. Henfrey, after 
reciting the eulogies of various numismatic authorities, con- 
cludes with those of B. Nightingale and R. Stuart Poole, the 
latter being the Keeper of the Coins in the British Museimi. 
Says Mr. Nightingale, — " They have always been considered 
the most truthful, graceful, and highly finished specimens of 
modern medallic art. Indeed they have never been surpassed 
by any productions of the English Mint. Perhaps we might 
say they have never been equalled." Mr. Poole says, — "The 
great Protector's coins, designed by Simon the chief of English 
medallists, are unequalled in om^ whole series for the vigour 
of the portrait, a worthy presentment of the head of Cromwell, 
and the beauty and fitness of every portion of the work." 



3-58 ANECDOTES OF 

But beautiful as the Protector's money was, it had but a 
very limited circulation. As he died within a few months 
after the great coinage of IO-jS, the specimens then afloat 
would very naturally be hoarded as memorials of him and as 
cm'iosities. Samuel Pepys tells us that even so early as 1662 
Cromwell's pieces were prized and bought up by connoisseurs. 
From the circumstance that no specific mention is made of 
them in Charles II 's proclamation calling in the Commonwealth 
money, it has even been argued that they were never in public 
cii'culation. This, Mr. Henfrey does not admit, and thinks, 
with Sir Henry Ellis, that it must have been deemed quite 
unnecessary to prohibit in a proclamation the currency of 
coins which had virtually gone out of sight. 

Oliver's seal on the death-warrant of the King differs from 
that which he commonly used, inasmuch as the demi-lion 
holds a flem*-de-lys instead of a javelin or ring. The same 
seal follows Hamson's name. Perhaps he was without a seal 
at the time, and Cromwell standing by, lent him his. The 
published f ac similes of the warrant do not coiTectly represent 
this seal. 

Olirer's DriDiimcr boy Hot-rocks. 

The 3Ianchcste)' Guardian in 1843 published the narrative 
of a visit to James Horrocks then living in the neighbourhood, 
at the age of a hundred and twenty years more or less. The 
fact which principally gave interest to his history was that his 
father had been a drmnmer in Oliver's army. Now, as these 
officials are sometimes enlisted at a very tender age, it may be 
fair to suppose Mr. Horrocks senior to have been about fifteen 
years old at the time of the Protector's death. This will give 
1643 as the year of his birth, and eighty years as his age 
when he became the father of James Horrocks. To pave the 
way for a visit to the old gentleman (which however was not 
put in execution) a letter was sent by the present writer to 
the Editor of the Manchester paper, and the following reply 
was received from the " Gruardian Office, 1 Sep. 1843 — Sir. 
In reply to yours of the 30th ult. I can assure you that the 
facts relative to James Horrocks may be depended upon ; 
having been collected by our OAvn local correspondent from 
the old man himself only a few days before the account 
appeared in the Guardian, when the patriarch was in precisely 
the state described. Yom-s truly. J. IIarland." 

Plorrocks having long lived on his own estate of Hill-end, 
preferred in his closing daj's to share the shelter of his 
daughter Mrs. Haslam's roof at The Nook in llarwood, three 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 359 

miles from Bolton. At this time his principal infirmity was 
partial loss of sight ; in other respects he retained considerable 
yivacity. A visitor once remarking, "Mr. Horrocks, you 
must have been tall as a young man ", he started from his 
chair, and planting himself by the side of a six-foot man, 
replied, " Not much shortened yet." 

Of other late survivors among Oliver's veterans may be 
mentioned, first, Alexander McOuUoch, residing near Aber- 
deen at the time of his death in 1757 aged one hundi-ed and 
thirty two years. — Second, Colonel Thomas Winslow of 
Tipperary, who accompanied Oliver in the famous expedition 
to Ireland in 1649. His death occurred in 1766 when he 
had reached the extraordinary age of one hundred and forty 
six. And thirdly, we may apparently add the name of 
William Hiseland (or more probably Hazeland) a native of 
Wiltshire, who died in 1732 aged one hundred and twelve. 
He was twenty two when he fought for the Parliament at 
Edgehill ; after which he bore his part all through the Civil 
wars, was in William of Orange's army in Ireland, and closed 
his services under the Duke of Marlborough ; having borne 
arms for eighty years. He outlived his two first wives, and 
married his third at the age of a hundred and ten. In ad- 
dition to his college pension, the Duke of Richmond and Sir 
Robert Walpole solaced his later years with the further allow- 
ance of a crown a week. His tomb at Chelsea Hospital bears 
the following inscription. 

Here rests William Hiseland, 

A veteran if ever soldier was. 

Who merited well a pension, 

If long service be a merit : 

Having served upwards of the days of man. 

Antient, but not superannuated. 

Engaged in a series of wars 

Civil as well as foreign ; 

Yet not maimed or worn out by either. 

His complexion was florid and fresh, 

His health hale and hearty, 

Hia memory exact and ready ; 

In stature he excelled the military size, 

In strength surpassed the prime of youth. 

And what made his age still more patriarchal, 

When above one hundred years old, 

He took unto him a wife. 

Read, fellow Soldiers, and reflect 

That there is a spiritual warfare 

As well as a warfare temporal. 

Born 6 August 1620 ) . . ..^ 

Died 7 February 1732 j" ^g®^ ^^- 

John Phillips who died at Thorn near Leeds in 1742 at the 



360 ANECDOTES OV 

age of a hundred and seventeen, could lolate that when he 
was constable of his parish in l(J->3, being the first year of 
the Trotcetoratp, and his own nge at that time being twenty 
eight years, ho punished two of the Cromwellian soldiers for 
disorderly conduct, by clapping them in the town-stocks 
[at Leeds ?] ; — Cromwell, when he heard of it, merely ex- 
pressing the wish that every one of his own men had but 
half John Phillips' courage. The old man retained his teeth, 
his sight, and his liearing, to the last, and was able to get 
about till within a few days of his death. 

Does the following name point to any family alliance with 
the Protectoral house ? Colonel Cromwell Massey, who early 
entered into the East India Company's service, fought his 
way through many perils. In 1780, at Perinbanciun, he, 
together with Sir David Paird and two hundi-ed officers, was 
taken i^risoner by Hyder Ali and confined in dungeons at 
Seringapatam till the t}a-ant's death. His captivity lasted 
three years and nine months. He retired in 1800 and died 
at St. Lawrence, Eamsgate, 8 September 1845, aged one 
hundred and three years. Let the above cases of longevity 
be accepted subject to all the modern doubts expressed in 
Notes (uhI Queries or elsewhere. No attempt to certify will 
here be made. 



PanP(j)j}'k-H. 

It would be a long task to recount all the complimentary 
tributes in Latin and English verse which the genius of 
Oliver evoked. The collection known as the ^^Musarum 
O.roiiinDsiuni, ELAIOFORIA " is the memorial of the general 
joy which greeted his Peace with the Dutch ; and if to these 
we add the poems occasioned by his death, the authorship is 
seen to embrace some of the most illustrious names of the 
age. But above them all, as elaborate and affectionate tes- 
timonies, must be classed the panegyrics of John Milton and 
Andrew Marvell, Milton's contributions including not only 
those which bear his name, but ako, by general belief, the 
florid address presented in 1654 by the Portuguese ambassador 
Don Juan Poderiek de Saa Meneses, written in latin, and 
said at the time to be the composition of the ambassador's 
chaplain a learned Jesuit. If the writer of this latter essay 
had not known every word of it to be true, its praises 
might almost be pronounced fulsome. There is a sketch in 
it of the General's treatment of his men in time of wai- 
which is evidently founded on something better than mere 



OLINER CROMWELL. 



361 



hearsay, and accounts for the devotion which the army felt 
towards him. We must make room for a portion of it — 

" No Greneral was ever more tender of his soldiers. You 
loved them abroad in the battle, and at home in their quarters 
as yom' own children. You Avatched carefully against all 
their inconveniences, enquired into their necessities, antici- 
pated their demands and forestalled their discontents. A 
man under you might be displeased, but certainly he could 
not complain. Did a soldier lie before you wounded with a 
random shot ? You leaped from your horse, ran up to him, 
and took a part of his grief to yourself. If he wanted a bed, 
you spread under him your own cloak, which, for the aifection 
it was done with, felt softer than down. To another you 
offered your arms, and laid him folded in them to your 
breast, and out of your inborn love more nobly animated him 
with the throbbings of your heart. You pushed not your 
horse with greater force to the destruction of an enemy, than 
you checked and pulled him back to preserve your own 
soldier. In the battle you inm-ed your hand to slaughter, — 
in the camp, to preserve life. You judged no man to be your 
enemy longer than he exercised both hatred and arms against 
you. While he retained that attitude and refused to sur- 
render, you drove, you bore him down ; — when he was fallen 
and overcome, you raised and cherished him." 

After summoning in review, for the Lord General's emu- 
lation the respective virtues of a long list of antient heroes, 
the writer then concludes, — " To sum up all, inspect yourself. 
You alone are sufficient to express the virtues of them all. 
Comport yourself as you have hitherto done ; for you are he, 
who unless you deviate from yourself, cannot be a bad man ; 
— if yoTi imitate yourself, cannot but be the best." 

Lastly, to give Andi-ew Marvell a tiu-n, who Avas but an 
indifferent poet, we forgive the halting rhymes which were 
made the vehicle of so sincere a homage. Well has he pic- 
tured the mingled awe and affection with which the appear- 
ance of the great man was watched for every morning by the 
members of his household, as he came forth from domestic 
privacy to shed the aroma of holy peace through the palace 
and awaken among his co-workers the necessary fortitude 
for another day's toil. Andrew, as he sat Avriting Latin 
dispatches from Milton's dictation, was a close observer of the 
family life. He was particularly struck mth the whole- 
heartedness of the man, how he passed with equanimity from 
the council-chamber to some conclave of prayer or praise ; 

" Whose meanest acts lie would himself advance, 
As ungirt David to the ark did dance." 



362 ANECDOTES OF 

He gives us to perceive Hint among the Protector's 
daughters it was Frances (herself lately become a widow) 
who Avatched his declining days and endeavoured by song to 
lull his cares to sleep. Last!}', he looks upon the hero sleep- 
ing in death, and thus he sings. 

I saw him dead. A leaden slumber lies 

And mortal sleep over those wakeful eyes. 

Those gentle rays under the lid were fled, 

Through which his looks that piercing sweetness shed. 

That port which so majestic was and strong, 

Loose and deprived of vigour stretched along, 

All withered, all discoloured, pale and wan. 

How much another thing. — No more that man ! 



T/ie Tnjcrs. 

Oliver Cromwell was a man of prayer. To his honest 
apprehension the hand of Providence was throughout his 
career as distinct and palpable as the sun in the heavens. 
To retain the benefit of this sure defence, it followed that 
the only possible course open to him "u^as that of childlike 
obedience. Along this path he moved with the serene con- 
fidence only known to the sons of faith, and the power of 
(what men call) his genius, was born of the innocency of his 
heart. Personal supremacy was valuable only as it fm-nished 
the means for carrying out those maxims of religious liberty, 
civil order, and Protestant ascendancy in Europe, which he 
often told his brother- sovereigns abroad were the terms of 
his divine commission. In Bome he discerned the chief 
enemy to the liberties, the prosi^erity, and the piety of man- 
kind ; and in nations devoted to her sway, the strongholds of 
tyranny and vice. In face of such a state of things, he was 
not called upon when smitten on the one cheek to offer the 
other also. That might be a personal duty. Possibly it 
might not be a national duty. Nationality was an element 
not of his creation, but it was a factor which went for a great 
deal in the history of human progress, and he found himself 
by the will of Heaven in possession of a national sword. 
Without adopting the fiction of a chiistian nation, he had to 
ask himself the question why that sword was placed in his 
hand as a Protestant potentate in the then state of 
Em'ope ? His answer to that question w^as, as we know, 
a systematic plan of aggression against papal influences 
abroad. By parity of reasoning it appeared to him just 
and right to exercise the same law of force at home ; 
and he exorcised it so far as to meet and ratify the 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 363 

universal craving for an outward and visible profession of 
Oliristianity, but combining therewith absolute toleration for 
all doctrines that were not opposed to the Nation's peace. 
To him, as to Milton, the attainment of those ends was a 
more important object than the symmetry of the machinery. 
The respective views of the two men in matters ecclesiastic 
may or may not have coalesced in some executive details, but 
Milton had the good sense not to stand in arrest of the 
Protector's decision under the cii'cum stances of the hom\ 
Milton was born to be a theologian ; Cromwell was bom to 
be a governor. Milton's views of church-organization were 
manly, apostolic, and evangelical ; and when looked at from 
the private christian's stand-point, they were all-sufficient. 
But Cromwell had to look at the matter from the ruler's 
stand-point, and this was a very different affair. He had to 
sweep a politico-ecclesiastic horizon which was charged with 
thunder- clouds, an horizon of far wider reach than that of 
Milton's model church which only asked to be guided back 
into apostolic order. 

The period between the battle of Worcester and the disso- 
lution of the Long Parliament was greatly occupied by 
national discussions on what was called " the propagation of 
the gospel ", a term embracing the whole question of the 
alliance of church and state, the selection of pastors, and the 
maintenance of the old system of tithes versus a declaration 
of absolute voluntaryism. Committees were sitting, books 
printed, petitions presented, proposals entertained, — in all 
which Cromwell was a patient worker and watcher ; and we 
must therefore conclude that when he reached the conviction 
that England was not yet ready for the experimental adoption 
of Milton's theories, he had weighed the matter with all the 
powers he possessed. 

Now, it has often been stated that his resolution to main- 
tain the parochial clergy by force and arms was the one point 
in which he thoroughly disappointed John Milton and his 
brother voluntaries. It may be so. Perhaps he much more 
disappointed himself. But before smweying the difficulties 
of his position, let us clear the ground by first disposing of 
Richard Baxter's objections. It was the recorded opinion of 
this divine that Cromwell systematically prepared the public 
mind for his own personal exaltation by first stimulating the 
religious extravagances of the hour in order that himself 
might be welcomed as the patron and restorer of order ; and 
that having attained his end, he trusted thenceforward to the 
policy of doing good, for his continued security, — " that the 
people might love him, or at least be willing to have his 



364 ANECDOTES 01' 

government, for that good". 80 then we are to understand 
it was all in furtherence of liis own interest. Any solution 
will satisfy Baxter rather than admit that the Protector 
adopted the course which he deemed most righteous for 
righteousness' sake. But to those of us who believe that 
Cromwell possessed what the Scriptures term " a single eye ", 
the crooked policy hero attributed to him is altogether inad- 
missible. To a dignitary like Baxter who caused Quakers 
to bo put in the stocks at Kidderminster, and to other 
ministers who shared his sentiments of clerical domination, 
the Protector's decision, one would think, might have been 
sufficiently palatable, let the motive be what it might. It was 
the amount of toleration which v/ent along with it which the 
Presbyterian champion so resented. No man loved better 
than he did the order and power implied in the phrase 
"church and state", and liberty of conscience consequently 
took in his estimation the place of rank heresy, — liberty of 
the lay-conscience, that is to say ; for ministers were the only 
true guides of opinion. "If", says he, referring to the early 
stages of the struggle, " there had been a competent number 
of ministers, each doing his part, the whole plot of the furious 
party might have been broken, and king, parliament, and 
religion preserved ". By the fmious party here are meant 
the anabaptist soldiers who in the days of his army-chaplaincy 
had so often outraged his official dignity by controverting 
his dogmas of church polity, and laughing at his baptism of 
infants. 

But leaving Baxter to learn in his after schools of tribula- 
tion the lesson of mutual forbearance, we may now look at 
some other of Oliver's difficulties, and in so doing, take an 
introductory glance at the actual state of English churches. 
They comprehended then, to begin with, the entire popidation. 
Every one who had been made a christian by baptism could 
claim a legal right to, so called, church-privileges ; by which 
fiction it came to pass that church discipline was, as it always 
must be under the circumstances, a farce. When Peter Ince, 
one of the conscientious pastors of South- Wilts, ventured to 
restrict communion by instituting a character-test, all the 
parish rose in arms. The chmvli was theirs, not his. Still 
more du-e must have been the confusion and clash of tongues 
when the incumbent happened, as was sometimes the case, to 
be a baptist. Such was the nature of parochial church life 
which Cromwell had to deal withal, a system wrought for 
ages past into the very fabric of society, one which he had 
no hand in initiating, and which he certainly had no power 
to aiTest. Church-discipline then must for the present be 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 365 

regarded as unattainable, even if it had ever been possible to 
bring it within the reach of an ecclesiastical police, — and 
congregations must be treated not as christians, but as citizens. 
Cromwell knew as well as any one that churches of the primi- 
tive age had their organization in their own hands, but he 
also knew that as soon as they learned to look to earthly 
authority in support or recognition of their spiritual status, 
from that monient they became merged in surrounding in- 
fluences. Their spiritual status was quenched in their 
citizenship, and forthwith became, if not a myth, at least an 
undefinable quantity outside of the legislator's notice. Milton 
with the daring of youth had once said, " a commonwealth 
ought to be but as one huge christian personage, one mighty 
growthand stature of an honest man." The aspiration was 
poetic, it was even prophetic and biblical, but as yet it was 
far enough out of sight in England; and when he and 
Cromwell found at last an opportunity of giving to their en- 
deavours a practical shape, the reform had to drop down to 
the regulation of parish churches; and how to exalt and 
pm^ify oven these by legislative action, it was felt could only 
be a very superficial affair. 

Butin addition to them, the legislator had also to recognize 
the existence of other gatherings of christian men. From 
the days of Constantino downwards, catholic unity had forcibly 
preserved the peace in this respect ; but protestantism is the 
nurse of sects, and as England and Scotland were protestant, 
so the sects abounded. They could not be obliterated. Nay, 
putting aside the bitterness of rivalry kept alive in them by 
the action of paid teachers, they are a healthy symptom of 
life. In any case then let them enjoy a common share of 
that protection which is their undoubted right as citizens 
though not as spiritual persons. Even Milton could not 
withhold this amount of governmental support. 

_ By this principle therefore Cromwell appears to have guided 
his course. The various religious parties were given to under- 
stand that they had perfect liberty to think and let think. 
He attempted neither to define nor to defend the theological 
position of any one of the belligerents, but he Avas resolved 
if possible to keep them one and all from cutting each others' 
throats. How this amicable neutrality could be secm^ed when 
the beneficed clergy retained the power of summoning the 
civil sword in defence of their tithes, could never have been 
very clear. Apparently there was at present no mode of 
escape out of the dilemma ; but so far as the cu-cumstanoes 
of the case permitted, he became what has been termed " a 
despot for freedom of conscience" paradoxical as it may 



366 ANECDOTES OF 

sound. Could a succession of Cromwells be counted on, the 
system of compromise thus put into action might possibly 
retain some healthy efficiency, and the religious freedom 
■which he secm'ed in spite of the parochial clergy, be inde- 
finitely perpetuated. Still it Avas but a compromise, a tem- 
porary expedient adopted in hope of something better tm'ning 
up ; and so far as liis own conscience was concerned in the 
matter, it is satisfactory to know from his repeated declarations 
that he believed he had pursued the right course. 

Was there any otlier prominent object to be considered ? 
Yes, there was the selection and payment of ministers. Here 
also, if legislation would but consent to sit still and ignore 
the existence of christianism, Milton's conclusions Avere 
irresistible. And as England then was, another conclusion 
also was irresistible, — every parish would become in succession 
the seat of civil war. Those who are familiar with the 
schedules of estates called " particulars," which the royalists 
had to fm-nish when they compounded for their "delinquency," 
will have observed how frequently the rural rectories were in 
the hands of laymen, who, while they kept the tithes to them- 
selves and maintained the fabric of the church in repair or 
disrepair as the case might be, met the ecclesiastical wants of 
the people by pajdng a small stipend of from forty to seventy 
pounds to some curate or vicarius, who was very much at 
their mercy. And as were the royalist landowners, so were 
all other landowners. Now, let it be conceived for a moment 
what would have been the result of tearing up such a system 
as this in countless parishes where there could be no possible 
agreement in doctrinal matters, and consequently no concord 
in the choice of a pastor, — at a time too when the Quakers 
were perambulating every village in the realm and sowing- 
broadcast the seeds of ecclesiastical revolt. Was it not better 
to allow the right of presentation to remain for the present 
with the landowners or other patrons, and qualify the evil by 
subjecting the nominees to the strait-gate of examination ? 
So Oliver appears to have reasoned. 

And this brings us at last in sight of the county com-ts of 
arbitrators, called Tryers or expurgators, and by the episcopal 
party " hamnistai " or tormentors, — selected from professors 
of different protestant creeds, lay and clerical, and appointed 
to pronounce on the fitness or otherwise of candidates for in- 
cumbences. They were not altogether a new institution, — 
Acts for the ejectment of scandalous and insufficient divines 
having been on the statute-books ever since the time of 
James I. See the Conuiions' Journals as far back as 22 June 
1604, but under tlie Commonwealth the system was brought 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 367 

into more rigorous practice. This was what Professor David 
Masson in his Life of John Milton so repeatedly terms 
*' Cromwell's State-Church," but which after all means no 
more than this, that he met the helpless cry for a paid pastorate 
by furnishing the best article within his reach ; and in 
furtherance of this object it must be admitted that his super- 
vision was anxious and incessant. In Marchmont Needham's 
book published in 1657 entitled " The great accuser cast doicn,'' 
weare told that " His Highness, having near one half of the 
livings in England one way or other in his own immediate 
disposal by presentation, he seldom bestowetli one of them 
upon any man whom himself doth not first examine and make 
trial of in person. Save only that at such times as his great 
affairs happen to be more urgent than ordinary, he useth to 
appoint some other to do it in his behalf. Which is so rare 
an example oi piety that the like is not to be found in the 
stories of princes." 

And then, touching the som^ces of income, how to find a 
substitute for tithes was felt to be a bottomless question. 
There was some talk of experimenting in Ireland, and gather- 
ing tithes into a common fund for re-distribution among 
incumbents, but it came to nothing. Oliver evidently shrank 
most sensitively from the injustice of any plan which looked 
like pauperising the regular clergy. On this ground he fouglit 
their battle from first to last. He told the House that the best 
among the clergy woidd heartily welcome some more gracious 
scheme of support, if such could be found ; but until that 
happy discovery were made, tithes were unavoidable. To fall 
back on imiversal voluntaryism he thought woidd be unfair 
treatment towards the ministers. 

But let Cromwell's solicitude as the father of his people be 
what it might, was not the above plan tainted with the old 
inherent vice of withholding from the chm^ches the right to 
choose their own pastors ? — Answer. It certainly was the 
withholding of that right from the parishioners in the mass, 
whether they were christians or not. And if we wish to know 
how the exercise of such right would be likely to work, we 
have only to look at those parishes where the popular election 
of their rectors or ministers still prevails in England. Though 
blood may not be actually spilt as was the case in some of the 
earlier battles between bishops, the spectacle is equally un- 
edifying. What then, it will be asked, is legislation to do in 
such a case ? After an experience prolonged for two centuries 
since Oliver fell asleep, we might be tempted to utter a 
summary sentence very much at variance with his plan of 
action. But in judging of that plan so far as he was impli- 



368 ANECDOTES OF 

cated, we liavo to remember that in the Eeformatiou era 
through which his own youth liad passed, the protestant 
conscience was absokitoly saturated with the divine mission of 
a stationary preaching clergy. Ever since the hour of liis 
conversion he had been prominent in their advocacy ; and to 
give them a fair chance now that he had the power was 
clearly with him a point of conscience. The most advanced 
christian thinkers of that day were as yet very far from taking 
the ground which John Foster (the Essayist) occupied a 
hundred and fifty years later Avhen he started the sugges- 
ti(m that all ecclesiastical organizations were useless and 
mischievous, and the sooner they were dissolved the better. 
Pure protestantism, or the biblical principle of light against 
darkness had never before found herself in the seat of 
authority, at least in England. The metaphor which re- 
presents the champion of puritanism with a sword in one 
hand and a bible in the other is a perfectly just one ; for 
though puritanism was something more reformed than the 
Anglican reformation, it was that something still pronouncing 
itself by the aid of governmental force. The main difference 
lay here, that in place of subsidizing a church of priests, the 
monopoly Avas transferred to a church of pastors. These had 
now to be put upon trial ; and in spite of the check delivered 
by the re-ascent of the Anglican church to the supreme power, 
the experimental preaching dynasty of the sixteenth century 
has gone on ever since. Shoiild it have to resign its func- 
tions to something l)etter, it will not, in the meanwhile, have 
lived in vain. 

Here the defence of Oliver's chm'ch scheme must come to an 
end. If we say that, in presence of the moral uj)turnings 
through which the nation had passed, he saw no other 
method whereby to ride the angry storm, let it be accepted 
as an admission that he was able to read his position 
better than we can read it for him, though it leave untouched 
the counter axiom that no civil power has ever yet shewn 
itself sufficiently pm-e to become the earthly representative of 
the kingdom of righteousness. IIoav far he was himself 
aware of the false position held by subsidized divines may be 
parti}" gathered from his own explicit disavowal of their ex- 
clusive charter ; and this in fairness ought to be now added. 
— " Where do you find in Scripture," he had said to the Scots 
ministers, " a ground to warrant such an assertion that 
preaching is exclusively your function? Though an approba- 
tion from men hath order in it, and may do well, yet he that 
hath no better wari'ant than that, hath none at all. I hope 
He that ascended up on high may give His gifts to whom He 



OLI"\'ER CROMWELL. 360 

pleaseth ; and if these gifts be the seal of mission, be not you 
envious though Eldad and Medad prophesy." To the Irish 
prelates and priests he had fui-ther said. — 

"I wonder not at discontents and divisions where so anti- 
chi'istian and dividing a term as clergy and laity is given 
and received ; a term unknown to any save the antichiistian 
church and such as derive themselves from her. Ab initio 
noil fuit sic. ... It was yom' pride that begat this 
expression ; and it is for filthy lucre's sake that you keep it 
up ; — that by making the people believe that they are not so 
holy as yourselves, they might, for their penny, purchase 
some sanctity from you ; and that you might bridle, saddle, 
and ride them, at yoiu- pleasm'e ; and do (as is most true of 
you) as the Scribes and Pharisees of old did by their laity, 
keep the knowledge of the law from them, and then be able 
in their pride to say, This people that knoweth not the law 
are cm'sed." 

These revelations of his personal convictions give us some 
insight into the conflicting elements through which he had to 
steer his com-se. It was impossible, for example, that he 
could be deaf to the woes and wailings of the Quakers, 
— flogged, imprisoned, and robbed by tithe-gatherers. We 
know in fact that a very fair list could be exhibited, were 
there time, of Idndnesses and deliverances wi'ought not only 
by himself but by members of his household in behalf of the 
sufferers. Some (not all) of the Quaker annalists have been 
very unjust towards him in this matter, attributing to him 
personally what was due to the tyranny which, in that age of 
local government, magistrates at a distance from London 
were able to exercise with impunity. Where he could not 
legally interfere was in those violations of established order 
in which some of the more audacious Quakers indulged. It 
matters little. The Quakers meanwhile were quite right 
in attributing to his governmental sanction the ugly ma- 
chinery of a dominant clergy, under which they suffered 
most cruelly. He became, we can hardly doubt it, more fully 
sensible of the reigning evil when failing health and foreign 
complications left him no fm^ther time for organic reforms. 

The effect on the ministers themselves was still more 
morally disastrous. They supported the Protector's authority 
so long as it lasted ; and then, as one man, fell prostrate at 
the feet of returning royalism, having clone their utmost to 
bring it about in pure di-ead of the encroachments of Quaker- 
ism. And their official representatives and successors to the 
present hour revile the Protector and all his works. 

The crucial test of tlie Act of Uniformity proved the per- 

A A 



870 ANECDOTES OF 

sonal wortli of many of them as men and as christians, and 
so far forth reflected credit on the system which placed them 
in office ; and if that crucial test did not at once bring the 
expelled Two Thousand round to the platform of John 
Milton and the Quakers, it at least gave positivism to those 
principles which by a slower routine will eventually show 
that platform to be the only honest and victorious one. 
Strange was the destiny of the puritan-poet ! Led, like his 
illustrious friend the puritan captain, away from the path 
which he had originally chosen, into other scenes and contro- 
versies which were necessary for his mental education, he 
proved in his own case the wisdom of that friend's axiom, — 
how feeble is human forecast when compared with the faith 
which asks where the next footstep shall be planted. If the 
Civil War had brought forth no other fruit than John 
Milton's controversial writings, the crop might well challenge 
the benediction of all succeeding ages. His polemics were as 
far in advance of the pulpit of his day, or of our own either, 
as the intelligent patriotism of the Protector went ahead of 
the crochets of his parliaments. Not a few of his com- 
patriots of the present generation have this conviction pro- 
foundly seated in their hearts, and their own forced and 
temporary inaction is rendered just supportable by the 
thought that the words of the master ready stand, waiting 
like Sampson's foxes, so soon as the Philistines' harvest shall 
be fidly ripe, to run in and set the field on fire. 

For two hundred years the exaltation of John Milton's 
poetry has been made by his pseudo-admirers the means of 
smothering his autliority as a divine. In an epic or lyric 
form he may be tolerated in the most fastidious drawing- 
room, — pictorially edited or plain, — illuminated or obscured, 
as the case may be, by distracting quotations from heathen 
writers or the microscopic revelations of commentators. 
There is only one proviso to be observed, — his orthodox 
writings must never be bound up with his apocrypha. 

But tliis apochrj-phal divinity of John Milton will yet 
be the death of idolatry. Absorbing all that was crystalline 
in Greorge Fox, all that was practicable in pm-itanism, and all 
that was gallant in good citizenship, he sets forth Christianity 
as hostile indeed to lawless t_)a"anny, but in no sense uncon- 
genial with national self-assertion, — rather indeed as the sole 
guarantee of a people's advance. Priestcraft by a law of 
necessity withers l^eneath his touch, and Grod's true heroes 
stand out in celestial relief. The sacerdotalists to a man 
instinctively recoil from his pages ; but they will never be 
permitted to forget that the anatomist who has gibbeted 



OLIVER CKOMWELL. 6t i 

their cause and their martyrs too in perennial infamy, was 
the sublimest of poets and the ripest of scholars, the most 
logical controversialist and the most finished latinist, a man 
of childlike faith, serenest valour, and harmonious soul. Yain 
is it for one traducer after another to tell us how he was 
ignominiously " vomited forth of the University," or to pic- 
ture him as destitute of natiu^al affection. His position in 
the heavens is fixed and eternal. His imperial friend and 
himself stand out as the Castor and Pollux of a storm-ridden 
sky, nor has their lustre yet reached its culmination. Oliver 
once threatened that the guns of England should he heard 
under the walls of the Vatican. The guns of England in 
those days, simple puritan guns though they were, were 
sufiiciently eloquent to awake in the sacerdotal breast the 
desire, as John Dryden expresses it, " behind more Alps to 
stand, although an Alexander were her guard." [Pope 
Alexander VII.'] But may we not, even as Thomas Carlyle 
has suggested, anticipate for England a grander destiny than 
even Oliver Protector contemplated, — a destiny we may say 
to which the policy of the first Oliver only pointed ? — though 
touching its external shape, conjecture has very little to offer 
beyond the general assumption that it will be the outcome of 
intense personality, and the total abandonment of clerical 
proxyism as the plausible buffer which selfishness loves to 
interpose between itself and the pressure of reform. To upset 
religious masquerading and dissolve the Long Parliament of 
hirelings may confidently be expected to be the function 
of the second Oliver, whether he incarnate unity or a multi- 
tude ; and this is why his advent is so stedfastly resisted 
and so suspiciously watched. The first Oliver made a ghastly 
breach in the enemy's wall. That breach was deftly stojDped 
with wind-bags, and garnished as heretofore with " men in 
buckram," to the delight of English patricians and prelates. 
Oliver the second will scorn to attempt the old breach ; he 
will blow the citadel into the air. The enforcement of uni- 
versal toleration in fact hardly expresses the capacity of his 
programme. What if he should go much farther than this, 
and in the name of civic empire decree the suppression of all 
articulate dogma whatsoever and the consequent dissolution 
of all churches ? Should it even come to this, the prospect 
need not alarm. The catastrophe may tm-n out to be nothing 
short of a blessing in disguise. There would not be a christian 
less in the land ; while thousands would be startled from a 
treacherous slumber into healthy activity on discovering that 
the ecclesiastical roof -tree no longer provided a hiding-place 
from individual responsibility. 



372 ANECDOTE'^ OF 

But stoppling short of this issue, it may be safely pre- 
dicated that if the re-conquest of the age to Christianity 
prove unattainahlo by the cliurch of pastors, such result will 
never be reached by the church of priests. It is not a new 
faith that the world needs, but the antient faith detached 
from its organisations, from its clericalism, from its super- 
stitions, and from its political relatidns. Already have 
many of the protostant ministers and delegates of Switzer- 
land given in their adhesion to a system which ignores all 
the canonical definitions of church life ; and e'er long we 
may expect to see multitudes more of them, armed with the 
fortitude of the ejected Two Thousand of England, rejoicing 
to cast oif the incubus of a false position and share the free- 
dom which neither themselves nor their flocks have ever yet 
tasted. Christianity knows nothing of any such class as 
Laymen, but summons all alike to accept and fulfil the 
vocation of priests and of heroes. " If hero mean sincere 
man,^' says Carlyle, "why may not any one of us be a hero?" 
That were indeed to raise again " the shout of a king," 
hushed in England's camp ever since the memorable third of 
September. 

The abandonment of the false psychology which has so 
long brooded like a nightmare over teachers and taught, 
cannot but conduce mightily to the setting free of an 
enlarged tentative philanthropy. With the extinction of 
religious caste "the conspiracy of silence" will also pass 
away, as no longer needed to daunt or to quench the impor- 
tunity of enquirers. And when Pauline theology is dis- 
covered to be the property, not of a William Tyndale or of a 
John Milton here and there, but the birthright of an eman- 
cipated generation, Christian men will look back with simple 
astonishment to think they should so long and so patiently 
have submitted to the tyranny of medireval strategy. 

These concluding remarks are Introduction to a work recently 

based, in great part, on an essay published in Paris, entitled Le 

by Dr. E. Petavel-Olliff, one of Christianitime sans cglises, from 

the Genevan pastors, forming the the pen of Henry Dunn. 



Kindred Cromicells. 

The village church of Cromwell St. Giles, co. Nottingham, 
lies five miles north of Newark, — "simple worshippers," 
says Carlyle, " still doing in it some kind of divine service 
every Sunday. From this, without any ghost to teach us, 
we can understand that the Cromwell kindred all got their 



OLIVER. CROMWELL 373 

name in very old times indeed. From torpedo rubbish records 
we learn also without much difficulty that the Barons Crom- 
well were summoned to Parliament from Edward II's time 
downward, — that they had their chief seat at Tattershall in 
Lincolnshire, and that there were Cromwells of distinction, 
and of no distinction, scattered in reasonable abundance over 
that Fen-country " Letters and Speeches. 

And such was truly the case two hundred years ago ; but 
now the baronies have dropped out of the Peerage books ; 
and even among commoners, the old familiar name may al- 
most be sought in vain. In respect of the titles of the 
Barons Cromwell and Earls of Ardglass, the last male repre- 
sentative was Yere Essex Cromwell who died in 1687. The 
Bai-ony of Cromwell then descended to his daughter Elizabeth 
Cromwell, in which rank she assisted at the funeral of Queen 
Mary II and the coronation of Queen Anne. She married 
Edward Southwell, Secretary of State for Ireland, and had 
issue one son Edward Southwell, who marrying Katharine 
daughter of Edward Watson, Viscount Sondes, and solo 
heiress of her brothers Lewis and Thomas Earls of Eock- 
ingham, left a son Edward Southwell, who in right of 
his mother succeeded to the Barony of De Clifford. Her 
ladyship died in 1709, and the Barony of Cromwell is now 
supposed to bo vested in the sisters and co-heirs of Edward 
Lord de Clifford, son and successor of Edward Lord De 
Clifford mentioned above. 



The Nottinghamshire branch. 

John Cromwell of Magd. Col. Camb. one of the ejected 
divines of 1662, was a native of Barnby-moor in Notting- 
hamshire. He is described as a tall comely person of a 
healthful constitution ; but was principally noted at college 
for his studious and serious deportment, and as a preacher he 
was thought to rival Dr. Owen. His anxiety " to enter on 
the Lord's vineyard" was so early expressed that it required 
the expostulations of his friend Dr. Tuckney to induce him 
to complete his studies and in the mean time to practise village 
preaching near Cambridge. He first settled at Royston, till 
on the death of Dean Topham, the Protector Oliver presented 
him to the rectory of Claworth in Nottinghamshii'e, and at 
the same time made him the offer of £200 a year if he would 
act as chaplain to Henry Cromwell in Dublin. Mr. Crom- 
well replied that he thought the office of preaching the higher 
preferment of the two. So he remained in England, and 



o74 ANECDOTES 01' 

occasionally ofliciated at Coui-t with cousideraLlo approval, 
especially on the occasion of the fast for success against the 
Spaniards in 16-38. This it will be remembered was an occa- 
sion of remarkable devotional outflowing ; see page 212, when 
not only was John Cromwell a prominent agent, but the 
Protector himself must have taken part. This may be fairly 
gathered from Andrew Marvell's language. Speaking of the 
Protector's faith in praj^er, he manifestly refers to this prayer- 
meeting in the following lines, 

" And where the sandy mountain FeuAvick scaled, 
The sea between, — yet hence his prayer prevailed. 
What man was ever so in heaven obeyed 
Since the commanded sun o'er Gibeon stayed ? " 

[Marvell's " sandy mountain " refers to the sandy hillocks 
or dunes near Dunkirk. And the fact that Roger Fenwick 
alone is mentioned by the poet indicates the high estimation 
in which that officer's conduct at the battle of the Dunes was 
held. See page 207.] 

Soon after the Restoration, a rival claimant to Mr. Crom- 
well's rectory unsuccessfully sought to eject him by vu'tue of 
a title direct from the King. But though Mr. CromweU 
thought proper to resist an usurpation of this nature he fell 
prostrate before the Uniformity Act of 1662 ; and after that 
crisis, his life was a prolonged experience of tribulation. On 
a charge of complicity in what was called " the Yorkshire 
plot," he lay in prison at Newark for several years, till the 
Duke of Newcastle interfered and put his accusers to shame. 
Often had he petitioned in vain to be brought to trial ; for it 
was well kno"v\Ti that the only offence chargeable upon him 
was the name he bore. On recovering his liberty he appeared 
to throw off to some extent the diseases contracted in prison, 
and passed some time in Norwich where he was the object of 
general esteem, though not without his trials. He was dining 
one day with Bishop Reynolds together with a group of 
divinity students : Mr. Cromwell and the Bishop conducted 
the conversation alone, and on the former's quitting the room, 
the Bishop rose to attend him. At this the young men 
laughed ; but the Bishop having first rebuked their incivility 
towards one who was his guest, added, — " Thus far I can 
aver, that Mr. Cromwell has more solid divinity in his little 
finger than all of you have in yom- bodies." Experiencing 
a return of the maladies engendered by his prison life, Mr, 
Cromwell sought change of aii- in his luitive village of 
Barnby-Moor, but reached the place only to die, April, 1685. 
What family relationship he bore to the Protector is not 
certified. Mark Noble observes that " it was prudent in him 



OLI^'EK CROMWELL. 375 

to deny it ;" though we may be quite sure that if he did 
disown consanguinity, he was merely stating a fact, and had 
a better reason than prudence. Nor does there seem any 
reason why he should not be credited with the paternity of the 
Oliver Cromwell, gent" who appears in the list of pollers 

S" 7\rof ^^ ^^® ^^""^^ ^^ Nottingham in August, 1698 
Marl MSS 6846, and who crops up also as a father in the 
parish register of Bassford in the same county, thus,—" John 
the son of Oliver Cromwell, gent, and Mary his wife, born 
^ Jime 1696. That the family was non-conformist is suo-- 
gested by the birth and not the baptism of this son being 
recorded at Bassford. On this account it might not be so 
sale to Imk-on to this branch, Samuel Cromwell the medical 
doctor of Mansfield, Notts, seeing he belonged to Sidney 
Sussex College, and his son William in 1708 was entered of 
the same college. This Samuel must be the same person who 
m 1682 published at Leyden Bisjmtafio de tumor ihus in qencre. 
Ami where shall we place Oliver James Benjamin Crom- 
well Esq. mentioned by Mark Noble as an extensive landowner 
m the counties of York and Leicester in the early part of the 
next century ? None of his five children, according to Mark 
Noble carried on the descent ; yet Cromwells from Leicester 
are still extant. Oliver Cromwell of Leicester who died about 
1869 was father to the late William Cromwell of Windsor 
whose widow (born Maria Cox) still lives there, 1879 Her 
eldest son is Oliver Cromwell of 17 Trafalgar Square, 
reckham, besides other children, among whose numerous 
oltsprmg the name of Oliver is not destined to die out just j^i. 

Cromicelh of Wiltshire and of the city of Bath. 

The name occurs in the old parish registers of Potterne 
Keevil, Stanton-Barnard, and Seend near Devizes; supposed 
to derive from Sir Philip Cromwell an uncle of the Protector 
See Edmondson. Mark Noble says, " There is a family of 
Cromwell of Bromsgrove who came from Devizes. Their 
father hated the name of Cromwell because of Oliver the 
Protector." The History of Devizes, edit. 1859, relates a duel 
which took place there in 1800 between a vereran Colonel 
named Campbell and a young wild-drake known as Lieutenant 
Cromwell, arising out of a dispute about a recruit whom 
Cromwell, by paying his "smart money" for him, had 
induced to back out of his first engagement in the Colonel's 
troop, and to re-enlist under himself. In the meeting which 
ensued, the lieutenant received a slight wound in the face ; 



376 ANECDOTES OP 

Upon wliich Campbell shook hands with him, said he was a 
brave young fellow, but must take care another time. The 
senior officer's conduct on tliis occasion in accepting a challenge 
from one whom he might have reported and disgraced, was 
mucli applauded at the time. 

Cromwells have long been known in Bath in connexion 
with the stone quarries of that district. Peter Cromwell, whose 
works were at Combe-down, and who had an extensive business 
in Bath during the last century, was buried at old Widcombe 
chmxh, about 1800, aged 92. Of his sons, three in number, 
Oliver, James, and Peter ; Oliver was the only one who 
married, lie left one infant son, William, born in Bath, 
1783 ; who became the father of the present "William Cromwell, 
born at Twerton in 1820, and now 1879 living in the Station 
Eoad close to Anerley station. He has a family. 

Another branch derives from Edward Cromwell of Bath, 
whose sons were 1st, Oliver Cromwell, a master-mason now 
residing at 16 St. James's Parade, the father of Oliver 
Cromwell the pharmaceutical chemist of Brixton-Eise. 2nd, 
William Cromwell, who died about 1854, a Baptist preacher 
belonging to Widcombe chapel, and very popular among the 
neighbouring churches of Westbury, Frome, Warminster, 
Trowbridge, and Devizes. " The Jo//s and sorrows of a pastor's 
life " is the title of his Memoir, by 0. W. Banks. 

Allied to this branch is John Gr. Cromwell, M.A. Principal 
of St. Mark's College at Chelsea and hon. Canon of Dui-ham, 
who states that his great-grandfather WiUiam Cromwell was 
admitted to the freedom of the City of London as a master- 
mason or builder, in 1787. 

The Gentleman's 3Ia(jazine for January 1777 has the 
following — "Died, on the 15th Mr. Oliver Cromwell, aged 
92 ; thought to be the only descendant left of the family of 
the well-known Oliver Cromwell." Subsequent writers in 
that and other periodicals, referring to this gentleman, who 
appears to have been resident at Hampton Comi park, dis- 
prove his descent from the Protector, but seem unable to 
exhibit his real antecedents. While this discussion was going 
forward, the veritable representative of the Protectoral house, 
viz. Oliver Cromwell of Brantingsay, Cheshunt, was in his 
thirty-sixth year. 

"Mr. Cromwell" (christian name not given) a wealthy 
brewer of Hammersmith, who died Dec. 1816, commenced 
business in a very modest way, carrying out his own beer to 
his customers ; and after he became the owner of the Creek- 
brewery, scorning to assume any airs of gentility either in 
dress or manner. He always dined in company with the men 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 377 

in his employ ; and even when friends joined the party, he 
helped his own servants to meat first. Heated by an alterca- 
tion with a merchant at the Corn-exchange, to whom he had 
sold a thousand quarters of malt but refused to deliver more 
than three hundred, he was taken suddenly ill on his way 
home, by the breaking of a blood-vessel as was supposed, and 
died in acorn-chandler's shop in Tottenham Com't Road; his 
fortune of £40,000 descending to two brothers. 

Thomas Cromwell, Ph. J), and F.S.A. minister of Newing- 
ton-green Unitarian chapel, published many tracts and 
addresses in advocacy of liberal principles, 1840 — 1860 ; 
among others, a masterly treatise on the Soul, designed to 
expose the fallacy of basing the hope of an hereafter on the 
popularly prevailing notions of soul, spirit and mind — pub. 
1859. He dates from Canonbm-y, where he is believed to 
have died, a widower, about the year 1872. 

Thomas Kitson Cromwell, the antiquary, whose writings 
on topography took the form of ^^ Excursions" , 1830 et seq. 
published also an Earli/ JUstonj of Ireland, The Druid, a 
tragedy, and The Protector Olirer's Life and Times. 

John Grabriel Cromwell is the name of a modern constructor 
of elementary school books. 

Oliver Cromwell of Carolina published in 1828 a feeble 
poem entitled The Soidicr\s Wreath, in celebration of General 
Jackson's defence of New Orleans. 

Mrs, C. T. Cromwell was the author of Over the Ocean, or 
glimpses of travel in niang lands. New York, 1849. 

Sidney Cromwell published in New York Political Opinions 
in 1776. At the present hour the sm'name of Cromwell is 
apparently more prevalent in America than in the mother- 
country. It has penetrated even into California. 

Cleveland's Memoirs. In 1736 there came out in Dublin a 
dull book in two vols, entitled The Life and entertaining 
adventures of Mr. Cleveland a natural son of Oliver Cromwell, 
written by himself ; with reflexions on the heart of man in 
all its varieties of passions and disguises. Also some par- 
ticulars of Oliver's private history never before made public. 
The book could never have been regarded as other than a 
feeble forgery. The writer's mother, described as Elizabeth 
Cleveland the daughter of one of the officers in charge of 
Hampton-Court, is moreover declared to have been originally 
a favourite of King Charles I. ! The list of subscribers to 
the work shews them to have been mainly Irish, and there 
are no Oromwells among them. 



378 ANECDOTES OF 



The Protector'' s t>rothcrs and sisters. 

Oliver had two brothers, Henry and Eohert, both of whom 
died in infancy ; — and seven sisters, Joan, Elizabeth, 
Catharine, Margaret, Anna, Jane, and Robina. Of these, 
Joan, born in 1598, died at the age of eight. Of the other 
six who reached matm^ity a brief account here follows. 

Elizabeth Cromwell, born in 1593, died unmarried in 
1672 and was buried within the communion-rails of the 
chancel of Wicken. An interesting letter to her finds its 
place in the last edition of CronucelVs Letters and Speeches. 
Mr. Carlyle thus introduces it, — " By accident, another 
ciu-ious glimpse into the Cromwell family. Sister Elizabeth 
of whom, except the date of her birth and that she died 
unmarried, almost nothing is known, comes visibly to light 
here, — living at Ely in very truth, as Noble had guessed she 
did, quietly boarded at some friendly Doctor's there, in the 
scene and among the people always familiar to her. She is 
six years older than Oliver, — now and then hears from him, 
we are glad to see, and receives small tokens of his love of a 
substantial kind. For the rest, sad news in this letter, — Son 
Ireton is dead of fever in Ireland ; the tidings reached 
London just a week ago. 

For my dear Sister Mrs. Elizabeth Cromwell, at Dr. Richard 
Stand's house at Ely. These. 

Cockpit. 15 Dec. 1651. 

Dear Sister. I have received divers letters from you. I 
must desire you to excuse my not "sviuting so often as you 
expect. My burden is not ordinary, nor are my weaknesses 
a few, to go through therewith ; but I have hope in a better 
strength. I have herewith sent you Twenty pounds as a 
small token of my love. I hope I shall be mindful of you. 
I wish you and I may have our rest and satisfaction where 
all saints have theii's. What is of this world will be found 
transitory, a clear evidence whereof is my son Ireton's death. 
I rest, dear Sister, yom' affectionate brother, 

Oliver Cromwell. 

P.S. My Mother, wife, and your friends here remember 
their loves. 

Catharine Cromweli-, the I'rotector's third sister, bom 
1597 married Hoger Wliitstone, (descended from a Peter- 
borough family) who served in the British forces in the pay 
of Holland, — where also most of her children were born, and 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 379 

where he himself is supposed to have died some time before 
his brother-in-Law's rise to power. The widow and her 
children then returned to England, — Henry the eldest of 
them serving as a sea-captain under Admiral Stokes ; but 
neither he nor his three brothers appear to have left descend- 
ants ; and the same must be said of their sister Levina, who 
in 1655 was married to Major Richard Beke of Buckingham- 
shire. This young lady is referred to as being near death, 
in the postscript of a letter by Lord Fauconberg, quoted 
above at page 219. From another document here following 
we gather that on the Whitstone family returning from 
abroad, the widow and her daughter Levina shared for some 
time the dwelling house of her brother Oliver at the Cockpit, 
and in that docmuent Mrs. Whitstone is stated to have been 
"his best beloved sister." 

Among the troops of petitioners besieging the throne of 
the restored Charles, figm^es Lady Baker (widow of Sir 
Thomas Baker of Exeter,) who, while recounting the sacri- 
fices which she and her husband had made during the wars, 
indulges in a long narrative touching her own correspondence 
with the Cromwell family, undertaken as she represents solely 
with a view to plead the King's cause. She had commenced 
proceedings by forming the acquaintance of Mrs Whitstone, 
" Cromwell's best beloved sister,'' at the time when the 
family was living at the Cockpit in Westminster, in order to 
obtain through her means a personal interview with her 
brother, expressing to her dear friend the confident hope that 
if she could only get speech of my Lord Greneral, she doubted 
not to render him the happiest man alive. In pursuance of 
this object she was so far successfid on one occasion as to 
induce Mrs Whitstone to carry a request in to her brother, 
who was no farther oif than in an adjoining room ; but Mrs 
Whitstone, after a talk with him, came back with tears in her 
eyes, saying that he was the dearest brother in the world, 
and she would never forgive herself if through her means any 
injmy should befall him. In short, my Lady Baker was 
given to understand that many thought her a dangerous 
person, an insinuation which she repelled with laughter, 
asking whether they thought that because she was a big 
Woman, she must therefore be full of ammunition ? Henry 
Cromwell now enters the room, desiring to know the object of 
the lady's mission ; and after a renewed colloquy with his 
father, revives her hopes of a personal audience. But a per- 
sonal audience is not yet attainable ; her benevolent solicitude 
IS again met with a message of dismissal and a recommenda- 
tion to put her thoughts upon paper; and so ended this 



380 ANECDOTES OF 

experimental visit. But shortly afterwards, she again waited 
by ap]")ointnient on Mrs Cromwell at tlie Cockpit, and begged 
Mrs AVliitstono's daughter to announce her arrival. Mrs 
Cromwell, Avho had not yet left her private apaiiments, 
retmmed answer that it was out of no disrespect to Lady 
Baker that she w^as not up ready to receive her, but the fact 
was that she and her lord had not slept that night ; she Avould 
nevertheless let him knoAv that Lady Baker was come. The 
long-looked for ojiportunity seemed now at last within reach; 
but alas, instead of my lord General coming forward to greet 
her, he was represented by two of his officers, to wit, Picker- 
ing and Fiennes, — to whom of com'se she stoutl}^ refused to 
give any explanation ; she had not come to see them, and 
she had nothing to communicate. Mrs Whitstone now 
urgently recommended her departm-e, suggesting that very 
possibly there might be something brewing against her. 
Lady Baker, scorning to be supposed accessible to fear while 
in the discharge of her duty, Avas proceeding to walk into the 
garden, where she found her progress again checked by a 
guard of musketeers ; and it required more than one 
additional messenger jet, to persuade her to quit the 
premises. 

It could not have been long after this affair that the widow 
"Whitstone married Colonel John Jones, one of the regicides, 
who suffered the penalty of high-treason on the King's 
retm-n ; — from and after which event, the lady also sinks out 
of history. Mark Noble observes respecting her, — "She is said 
to have been very unlike to her brother the Protector." 
Unlike in person, this probably means ; for, mentally, we 
have no reason to think there was any lack of mutual re- 
semblance among the members of that devout household. 

Margaret Cromwell, the Protector's fourth sister, born 
1601, was married to Colonel Valentine Wanton (or Walton) 
of Grreat Stoughton, co. Hunts, a member of a family which 
for generations back had been in cordial alliance Avith the 
Cromwolls, and by this marriage the old friendship seemed 
more than ever confirmed. In one respect only, namely in 
silent disapproval of the Protectorate, did Wanton's friend- 
ship suffer abatement. On the return of royalism. Colonel 
Wanton, as having been one of the most impetuous of the 
late King's judges, could of course expect no mercy, and he 
accordingly retired to some spot in the Low Countries, 
where he died in the following year, the victim as was sup- 
posed of disappointment, anxiety, and dread. His first wife 
Margaret CromAvell had been long dead ; and his children 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 381 

must have found themselves great sufferers by the total con- 
fiscation of their father's estates. These children appear to 
have been,— 1. George, born 1620, died in infancy.— 2. 
Valentine, born 1623.— 3. Another George, slain at Marston- 
moor. — 4. Eobert, a London mercer, ruined by a contract to 
supply nearly £7,000 worth of cloth at Oliver's funeral. He 
married a daughter of Colonel Pride.— 5. Anna, born 1622. 
—And perhaps, 6. Lieut. Ealph Wanton, who fell in 
Scotland serving under Monke. 

Anna Cromwell, the Protector's fifth sister, bom in 1603, 
was married to John Sewster of Wistow, co. Hunts, Esq. 
and was buried at Wistow in 1646, her husband surviving 
her thirty six years. They were a quiet unambitious race, 
and the " particular regard " which the Protector entertained 
towards them was no doubt based upon the puritanism 
common to both houses. The children, six in number, were, 
-—1. John, of whom presently. — 2. Eobert, buried at Wistow, 
1705.-3. Luc}^, 1631.-4. Eobina, named after her aunt, 
became the wife of Mr. Ambassador Lockhart.— 5. Catharine, 
died in infancy, 1642.— 6. Anna, died in infancy, 1647. 

John Sewster, eldest son and heir, died in 1680 (the year 
before his father), leaving two daughters who both married 
but had no issue. The family pictures descended to Mr. 
Cowley of Fenny-Stanton. 

Jane Cromwell, the sixth sister of the Protector Oliver, 
born in 1606, married, 1636, John Disbrowe, afterwards one 
of the Major-generals of the Protectorate, and a member of 
the Upper House. The family was seated at Eltisley, co. 
Camb. and were very prominent puritans in matters both 
ecclesiastical and civil. John Disbrowe was stoutly opposed 
to his brother-in-law's acceptance of the kingly title ; he 
was also a main agent in upsetting the Protector Eichard. 
At the Eestoration he went abroad, but was summoned back 
by the proclamation of 1665, requiring certain refugees to 
report themselves. He lived to exult in the Eevolution of 
1688 which virtually banished the Stuart race; and it is 
thought that after the death of his wife Jane Cromwell, he 
married a second time ; but we have now only to take note of 
that lady and her offspring. 

Lady Jane Disbrowe is believed to have died about the 
year 1656, as various letters from her husband at that period, 
while he was executing his Major-generalship in AViltshire, 
refer to her failing health, and solicit permission to return 
home. Her family, Mark Noble informs us, consisted of 



383 ANECDOTKS OV » 

one daiig-liter who died unm. and seven sons. John Richard 
Valentine and Benjamin are four of the names. Valentine, 
seated at Bocking in Essex, had, with .others, Sarah, who 
became the mother of Mr. Edward 13 right a provision mer- 
chant of Maldon in Essex, long celebrated as *' Great 
Bright" from his enormous size. Taking into calculation 
the weight which he was supposed to have acquired subse- 
quent to his latest scalijig, Mr, Bright must have reached 
before his death, forty foiu" stone, or 616 pounds. His por- 
trait has been frequently engraved ; but the most curious 
print respecting him is one published in 17-50, in which 
seven Maldon men are being buttoned into his vest, of which 
the annexed etching is a reduction to half-size. The par- 
ticidars related in . this and a companion plate giving his 
portrait at full length, are. that after his decease a wager was 
proposed between two gentlemen of rthe place (Mr. Godd and 
Mr. Hants) that five men of the age of twenty-one, then 
resident at Maldon, could not be buttoned into his waistcoat 
without breaking a stitch or straining a button; but that 
upon trial, on 1 Dec. 1750, in the house of the widow Day, 
the Black Ball in Maldon aforesaid, not only the five pro- 
posed, but seven men, were with the greatest ease included. 
One of the betting gentlemen addresses his friend thus, — 
"Sir, you'll allow that to be fair", to which the other 
replies, — " I do. Sir, to me beyond imagination ". 

Mr. Bright was descended from families who both on the 
father's and on the mother's side were much inclined to cor- 
pulency. At twelve years of age he weighed ten stone four ; 
and thirteen months before his death, forty one stone ten, 
independently of his clothes ; height nearly five feet ten 
inches, — round the chest he measured five feet six inches, — 
round the arm two feet two inches, — round the leg two 
feet ten inches. He ate and drank with freedom, and 
exhibited till shortly before his death great activity ; his 
general health being good till he became subject to slight 
inflammation in the leg, which however was easily reduced 
by scarification and bleeding. On such occasions it was 
usual for him to lose two pounds of blood at a time, 
of which he was no more sensible than an ordinary man 
is of the loss of twelve or fourteen ounces. There was an 
amiable mind in this overgrown body. He was of a cheerful 
temper and benevolent disposition, a kind husband, a tender 
father, a good master, a friendly neighbom*, and a very fair 
honest man. He would have been universally lamented but 
for the conviction that life had become a burden to him, and 
that he was known to look forward to his death as a happy 



OLIVER CROMWELL. 383 

release. His last illness, which, took an inflammatory form, 
lasted about fourteen days. His coffin was three feet six 
inches broad at the widest part, and three feet one and a half 
inches deep. People flocked from all the country-side to 
witness its interment. It was drawn to the church on a low- 
wheeled carriage by ten or twelve men, and lowered into the 
grave by machinery. [From an account di-awn up by T. 
Coe, physician of Chelmsford, for Dr. Cromwell Mortimer, 
secretary to the Eoyal Society, and inserted in Noble's Pro- 
tectorate. Dr. Mortimer was the son of John Mortimer Esq. 
of Somersetshire, by a daughter of Samuel Saunders Esq. 
of Derbyshire, who named this son " Cromwell" in memory 
of his first wife, Dorothy, youngest daughter of the Protector 
Richard. See page 21. Daniel Lambert lived much longer 
than Edward Bright, and at his culminating point attained 
the weight of 739 pounds]. 

Though the Disbrowes have branched off into several 
families bearing other names, the patronymic still finds j^lace 
among the Upper Ten Thousand. Colonel [Greorge ?] Dis- 
browe held the office of distributor of Queen Charlotte's 
bounty to the poor of Windsor. The Rt. hon. Sir Edward 
Cromwell Disbrov/e, who died in 1851, was Minister at the 
Hague. His body was brought to England. 

RoBiNA Cromwell, the Protector's seventh and youngest 
sister, was married to Dr. Peter French, a puritan divine, 
canon of Christchurch, Oxf. who died in 1655 dm-ing the 
dominion of his brother-in-law. In the following year she 
became the wife of another divine, the learned and eccentric 
Dr. John Wilkins, afterwards bishop of Chester ; — time of 
her death unknown. By her first marriage she had one 
daughter, Elizabeth, married in 1664 to John Tillotson after- 
wards Archbishop of Canterbury. The prelate's children 
were three in number, — 1. A son who died in early man- 
hood. — 2. Elizabeth, died unm. 1681. — 3. Mary, mar. to 
James Chadwick of Wanstead Esq. and had issue, George, 
John and Mary. Of these last three, George left one son 
Evelyn ; and Mary as the wife of Edward Fowler son of 
bishop Fowler of Gloucester, had two daughters, Anna-Maria 
and Elizabeth. 




NORBOROTJGM HoUSE. the seat of tlie Gaypoolos. 

The scene of ilic Protectress Elizabetl'Js Death. 



APPENDIX. 



Lady Mary Fanconhcrg. 

Page 101. Three years after the Restoration, we get a 
glimpse of this lady and her husband, at the play. — " Here," 
says Samuel Pepys, " I saw my Lord Fauconherg and his 
lady my Lady Mary Cromwell, who looks as well as I have 
known her, and well clad. But when the house began to 
fill, she put on her vizard, and so kept it on all the play ; 
which of late is become a great fashion among the ladies, 
which hides their whole face." Pepys's Diary, 12 Jioic, 
1663. 

Frances CronurelVs second marriage. 

Page 106. It is there stated that " some two or three 
years after her husband's death the young widow the Lady 
Frances became the wife of Sir John llusseil." — The interval 
was longer than two or three years ; for the second marriage 
took place at Hm-sley, 7 May, 1663, leading us to infer that 
Lady Frances had found a home in the house of her sister in 
law, the ex-Protectress Dorothy, from the time when the 
restoration of royalty became imminent ; and thus she may 
have helped by her presence to mitigate the melancholy and 
ennui which Lady Dorothy experienced after the flight of 
her husband. 

Captain Robert NicJioIas. 

Page 140. On a silver soup tureen surmounted by the 
family crest, an owl v/ith wings extended, on a cap of main- 
tenance, V\^as engraved the following testimonial. 

To CArTAiN Egbert Nicholas of ii.m.s. Lark, late 
Lieutenant-Grovernor of the island of Curacoa. 

This piece of plate is presented by the merchants concerned 
in trade with that island, as a mark of respect to his person, 
and a token of gratitude for those important benefits which 
resulted to them from his zeal and activity in the protection 
of their trade, and the wise policy of those measiu'es to which 
the beneficial intercoiu-se with the neighbouring Spanish 
colonies is to bo attributed. London, 14 Feb. 1809. 



386 Al'l'ENDIX. 

*bVr Jnilidiii Adolp/um Franhlaitd. 

Pago 149. In the election of 1880, Sir W. Frankland, 
coming forward as a Conservative, lost his seat for Thirsk. 

Lord Lijtlon Governor Goicral of India. 

Page 171. In April 1880 it was announced that the 
Queen had conferred on Lord Lytton the style and title of 
Earl of Lytton, co. Derby ; and Yiscount Knebworth of 
Knebworth, co. llerts. In January 1878 Lady Lytton had 
already bee a included in the select list of the recipients of 
the order of the impei^ial crown of India. 

Letters and Speeches. 

Pago 296. After the word "Protectorate" add,— " Mr. 
Peacock has subsequently stated that the Appendix to Yol. 
Ill of reports of the historical MSS commission mentions 
three letters by 0. C. preserved at Longleat in Wiltshire, 
two only of which are in Carlyle's work. The third, 19 Nov. 
1655 asks Colonel Norton to assist Colonel Groffe, who will be 
at Winchester to-morrow, p. 195. In the same collection, 
Yol. XX. p. 192 of the report, six others are mentioned. 

In the History of the administration of John de Witt, 
grand pensionary of Holland, by James Grecldes, a speech of 
Oliver's may be read, as reported by the Dutch envoys who 
were sent to England to negociate the Peace of 1653, pur- 
porting that how desirable soever it might be to meet the 
wishes of the Hollanders in matters of trade, the supreme 
wish of the English Protector was that the two Pepublics 
would unite their efforts in furtherance of the Kingdom of 
Christ among the nations of Europe now so trodden down by 
popish tyranny. 

The Soldier's poehet-Bible. 

Page 301. Three months previously to the publication of 
this manual, a small book had made its appearance entitled 
A Spiritual Sne(2)sack for the Parlianioifs soldiers ; containing 
cordial encouragcnients for the suecesful prosecution of the 
present cause. By j. r. It is much more diffuse and diluted 
than the Fochet-Bible, and bears no resemblance to it in the 
arrangement of its contents. 

But a re-cast of the Pocket Bible did appear in the reign of 
William and Mary, under the title of Religious Exercises in 



APrEXDix. 387 

this time of War ; drawn up by a lato cliaplaiu to tlio army, 
in 1690. Tlioiigh by no means identical in matter, it has 
too many points of resemblance to leave any doubt as to its 
source. Its motto on the title-page, for instance, begins, 
like Oliver's, " This book of the law shall not depart out of 
thy mouth &c." and Exercise I begins in like manner with 
the precept "When the host goeth forth against thine 
enemies, keep thyself from all wickedness," &c. The texts, 
as in the original work, are cast into groups under specific 
heads of duty, and are as follows. First. A Christian 
soldier must be strictly vii'tuous and religious in his life and 
conversation. — 2. lie must exercise the acts of daily repent- 
ance. — 3. He must meditate on the love of God. — 4. He 
must exercise himself in constant preparation for death. — 
5. He must give all due submission to his officers. — 6. He 
must be valorous in the cause of God, his country, and 
religion. — 7. He must not trust in an arm of flesh. — 8. He 
must depend on God's promises in the battle when about to 
engage the enemy. — 9. He must pray before going into 
action. — 10. He must not fear his enemies. — 11. If our 
forces are weakened, and the enemy's more strong, we must 
humble ourselves and pray more earnestly, that God may 
avert the judgment of the sword which is sent to punish the 
sins of the nation. — 12. But if it please God to bless us with 
victory, then we are to ascribe all the glory to Him. Then 
follows an Appendix containing brief collects for daily use 
and special occasions. It is altogether a feebler performance 
than the Pocket Bible, and its maxims are more tinctured 
with the church-and-king sentiment than would have found 
favour with Cromwellians. Let, for instance, a comparison 
be made between Exercise the eleventh and the last but one 
of the Poclxct Bible, and the stui'dy faith of tlie latter comes 
out in clear relief. — "If our forces," says ih.Q Pocket Bible, 
" be weakened and the enemy strengthened, then let soldiers 
and all of us know that now we have a promise of God's 
help which we had not when we were stronger, and therefore 
let us pray more confidently." 

Du))kirk as a school for oujineers. 

Page 257. " De toutes les places maritimes que je j)ouvois 
offrir pour exemple de la construction des travaux qui leur 
appartiennent, il n'y en a point qui en aient r^uni un plus 
grand nombre en tout genre, que Dunkerque, considt^ree 
dans la splendeur ou etoit son port avant sa demolition en 
1714. On y voyoit d'un meme coup d'oeil co qui ne se ren- 



388 APPENDIX. 

oontro ailleurs que separement. Tout y annoncoit la magni- 
ficence du grand Hoi qui en en avoit fait par lui-meme sur 
les lieux I'objot ossentiel de son attention. Cette place 
Bituee dans la Manche, etoit, par les avantages de sa position, 
la plus importante que la France eat sur I'Ocean. Tout 
sembloit concourir a la mettre fort au-dessus des autres. 
Devenue la plus famcuse ^cole qu'il y eut en Eui'ope pour la 
construction des ouvrages hydrauliques, par la quantite qui 
s'y en fit de toute cspece, les ingenieurs du Roi s'y attacherent 
a perfectionner co qui n'avoit ete pour ainsi dire qu'ebouche 
en ce genre. Jamais I'art n'a ete applique plus hem'eusement 
a tii'er tout I'ayantage possible de ce que la nature offroit de 
favorable, ou a vaincre les obstacles que Ton rencontroit de la 
part du terrein, pour executor les projets qui avoient ^te 
resolus." Architecture Hi/draidiquc, par M. BeUclor, 1750. 
And concludes his introductory sketch by shewing that 
facilities for drowning the land in the rear of the town, com- 
bined with soa-defences on the north, gave to the citizens 
perfect security from bombardment. 

Olicer and Beverubig. 

Page 332. While there is reason to think that their 
esteem was mutual, it is possible that the Protector's confi- 
dence in the Dutchman's judgment is here over-stated. In 
1654, Beverning, before he thoroughly knew the Protector, 
spoke of him as ^' sinnmiis dinsimulandi arti/cx" ; — con- 
trasting strangely with the anxiety he expressed at a later 
date that Downing would procm'e an exact portrait of him. 
Hamlet says, — " Those that would make mowes at him 
while my father lived, give twenty, forty, an hundred ducats 
apiece for his picture in little." Beverning's desire, we 
prefer to think, rested on a better basis than the vulgar 
sycophancy which disgusted Hamlet. 

Kindred Croniiccl/s. 

Page 377. — Jonathan Hartop who died at Aldborough 
near Boroughbridge in Yorkshire in 1791 at the age of 138, 
is reported in the longevity records as the same person who 
lent John Milton £50. Of his five wives, the third is said to 
have been an illegitimate daughter of Oliver Cromwell, who 
gave with her a portion of £500. Hartop also possessed a 
Oooper-miniatvire of Oliver, for which Thomas Hollis in vain 
offered him £300. 

Here is a strange jumble^ of traditions and anachronisms, 



APPENDIX. 3gn 

constructed apparently by the gossips who were familiar with 
the old gentleman m 1791, but whose knowledge of Oliver 
and of OW-^ times, like that of most oth!r people S 
England, had become very foggy. The connexion' between 
the Hartopp and Fleetwood families, and the £500 given to 

JJiX^it I' • 'ff''"^. ^'' ^'''''S Frances Cromwell, 
seem to be the basis of the story. ' 

Algernon Bortlucick. 

Page 166. This gentleman was knighted in April 1880 
havmg unsuccessfully contested Evesham in the conservative 
interest at the recent election. 

ift«n f^ f^^^^^ion of Mr. Gladstone's administration of 
1880, fom- names occmTing-m the above pages require notice, 
7'^^t^r^l^ Wilham Harcourt, page 166, L Secretar; 
oi btate for the Home Department ;-the Earl of Morle> , 

Eipon, page 160, as G-overnor General of India ;-and Earl 
Cowper, page 160, as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. 



— >0©^3©^<S<H — 



EPvEATA. 



Page 20, 1. 25. For Herncana3 read Ilearneana?. 
Page 62, 1. 2. For thoretic read theoretic. 
Page 268, 1. 30. For Murray read Murray. 

SimTn''^^^' ^^""'^ ^''^^''^^ ''''^ Wilkinson read Puttick and 

Page 80. Head of Mrs. Bendysh. This portrait being 
posthumous, Its only claim on the reader's acceptance musf 
take the form of " As you like it." 



INDEX. 



Acklom family . . . 
Addison of Soliam . . 
Astley of Checkers Court 
Barbone, Praise God . 
Barnard family . . . 
Bendysh Bridget. . . 
Berners family . . . 
Bexley, Lord .... 
Bowles family . . . 
Bright, great .... 



Broghil, Lord, his love for 
Cromwell .... 

Bunhill fields .... 



PAGE. 

157 

29 

147 

337 

153 

76 

87 

76 

130 

381 

297 
37 



Bunyan, John, signs an 
address to the Protector 



320 

111 

89 

149 



Cape Breton expedition 
Chester, Col. J. L. . . 
Chichester, Earl of . , 
Christina, Queen 277, 286, 325 

Clarendon, Villiers, Earl of 164 

Clarendon, Hyde, Earl of . 269 
Claypoole family . . 91 — 275 

Constable family . . . 156 

Cowper, Earl 160 

Creyke family . . . . 154 

Cromwell, House of . . 1 

Letters and anecdotes 273 

Relics and portraits . 347 

His coins 356 

His tomb 339 

Cromwells, Kindred- . . 372 

Darnley, Bligh, Earl of . 151 

De Grey, Earl 158 



Disbrowe family . . . 

Dunes, battle of the . 

Dunkirk, siege of . . 

Duret, the faithful valet 

Evelyn, Sir John . . 

Fairfax's desertion . . 

Fauconberg, Lord . . 

Field family .... 

Fleetwood, Charles . . 

Frankland family . . 

Gauden, Dr 

Gee family 

Gladstone, W. E. . 128 

Gosset family .... 

Hartopp family . . . 

Heale-house, fortunes of 

Henfrey's Numismata . 

Hewling family . . . 

HoUis, Thomas, sends por- 
trait to Sidney Sussex 
College .... 

Hotham family . . 

Howe, John . . , 

Ireton, Henry. . . 

Jenkins's Ear . . , 



Johnson, Dr. Samuel, 
Heale-house . . 

Lewis family . . . 

Lichfield, Earl of 

Lisbon earthquake . 

Lister family . . . 

Lockhart, Sir William 



PAGE. 

381 

205 

199 

314 

325 

336 

97 

47 

61 

108 

105 

152 

-170 

146 

66 

131 

356 

31 



353 

153 

13—71 

58 



at 



119 

130 
126 
110 
114 
166 
173 



Longevity cases . 39, 132, 358 



INDEX. 



AC. v.. 

153 



171 
191 
319 
3G1 

228 

3G2 2Mssim 

at 
. 195 

. 1G3 



122 

138 



Lubbock family . 

Lytton family . . 

Mardyke, plan of 

Marlborough firo . 

Marvell, Andrew . 

Mazarin, Libel on 

Miltou, John . . 

Morgan, Sir Tiiomas 
Mardyke . . 

Morley, Earl of 

Napoleon Buonaparte mis- 
takes Will. Fraiikland 
for Sir James Mackin- 
tosh 

Nicholas family .... 

Northampton, Marchioness IGl 

Peachey family .... 31 

Pelham family . , . . 1-49 

Picdmontese fund . . . 282 

Poisoned letters .... 325 

Polhill family 72 

Pope Alexander VII, his 
alarm 183 

John, 

... 193 

Rich family 10-4 

Ripon, Earl of ... . IGO 

Robinson, Henry Crabb . 57 

Roche, Sir Boyle . . . 12-1 

Rothes, Earl of . . . . 151 



Reynolds, Sir 
drowned at sea . 



Russell of Cheshunt . 

Russell of Chippenham 

Russell of Fordham 

Russia, alliance with 

Soldiers' pocket bible 

Skelmersdale, Baron 

Strickland family . 

Tillotson, Archbishop 

Tiverton Sports . . 

Transylvania, Prince o 

Tryers, the .... 

Usher, Archbishop . 

Vansittart family 

Villiers family . . 

Vyner family . . . 

Warwick, Earl of, his 
esteem for Cromwell 

Watts, Dr. Isaac . 

Whalley family . . 

Whinyatcs family 

White, Jerry . . 

Whitcfield, G eorg 
Boston . . . , 

Whitstone family 

Worsley family . 

York, James Duke of, de- 
feated at Dunkirk . , 

York, Frederick Duke of, 
defeated at Dunkirk 



at 



PAGE. 

44 
106 

29 
290 
301 
171 
,158 
383 
345 
280 
362 
324 

75 
164 
164 

105 

69 

294 

135 

103 

111 
378 
155 

211 

263 




LB N ?9 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



II 

007 939 157 8 ^ 



